


Office Party

by chewsdaychillin



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Christmas Parties, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Gen, Getting Together, Kissing, M/M, Mentions of Spiders, Mutual Pining, Only One Bed, Self-Esteem Issues, Slow Burn, a lot of pining, aggressively british references, also peter lukas being a prick, grafting boots, jon pov and martin pov, melanie and basira are mean gossiping gays and we love to see it, mentions of elias being a prick, office gossip, office parties, overuse of alcohol......., overuse of the word snog, safehouse honeymoon, soppy references to casablanca, spanning s1-4, this is basically gonna be like a 5+1 but ? not that old school, we out here switching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:48:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 27,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22376728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chewsdaychillin/pseuds/chewsdaychillin
Summary: At their first holiday party together, the archival assistants play snog, marry, avoid. It brings up things Martin would rather it hadn't.5+1 kinda formula - going through the seasons with every office party this shitty institute throws. slow burn.....  5 parties they didn't and one they did you all know the drill. pining with a happy ending.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims, like three flirty sentences, some implied tim/martin
Comments: 451
Kudos: 1506





	1. Snog, Marry, Avoid

‘Right,’ Tim says, too loudly over the fade-out of the music, sliding into the booth and knocking Martin’s elbow. ‘Snog, marry, avoid.’

Sasha giggles gleefully, the head of her pint spilling over her mouth and making her splutter.

Martin sighs, patting her on the back. ‘Aren’t we a bit old for this?’

He’s too tipsy for it too, really. He keeps his incriminating eyes on Sasha, on the table, on his glass. The whole institute is crammed into this grotty function room - too many people who could hear this conversation, watch where his gaze goes - and he really, really hates speculation.

It’s an open bar, of course - which somehow they have the budget for despite working on what look like _the_ original computers. So gossip and all things gossip-worthy are packed in too. The cheap, twirling disco lights give the air that feeling of excusability.

Every few rounds they go blue and whirl around in the furthest, darkest corner. It makes Jon’s hair look like ink and his wine go a deep purple. Of course he’s drinking red wine at a party, Martin thinks. Pretentious arsehole. He holds it properly, his hand cupped around the bowl, keeping it warm.

Tim has pulled back and is studying him, eyes squinted. ‘How old are you again?’

‘Thirty-four,’ Martin says, with very little hesitation. 

‘I don’t believe it for a second.’

‘No way,’ Sasha agrees.

‘Well thank you,’ Martin smiles, faking bashfulness pretty well, he thinks, ‘but I really am.’

‘Sure,’ Tim says, but he winks.

‘Why would I lie to be _older_? Who lies upwards?’

‘Listen,’ Tim waves him down, ‘either we’re playing snog, marry, avoid - or I’m asking this crappy DJ play some S Club and you’re all dancing with me.’

‘I love S Club,’ Sasha sighs blissfully, flopping her chin on Martin’s shoulder.

He pats her on the head before trying to shift. 'I’m getting another round - anyone?’

‘Sit down,’ Tim tells him, ‘come on, first office party we’ve had together. First Christmas get-together!’

‘ _Festive_ get together!’ Sasha reminds him.

‘Festive.’ Tim agrees. ‘The whole gang getting festive with some good old-fashioned gossip.’

‘Archive gang forever,’ Sasha sing-songs back.

‘It’s this or truth-or-dare,’ Tim says grimly.

Martin sits down. ‘Fine, but I’m not going first.’

‘Ohhh,’ Sasha bumps his shoulder, ‘secretive.’

‘I am not!’

’Do you not wanna hear who I’m snogging or not?’ Tim interrupts them.

They sit up straighter. He coughs and holds his hands up as if preparing a monologue.

‘Well. Avoid Elias, obviously.’

‘Obviously,’ they all agree, and Martin laughs.

Laughs for real. He downs the dregs of his pint, feeling the walls start to come down with it. He likes Tim and Sasha, and more surprisingly they seem to like him. Maybe silly games like this are worth the embarrassment.

‘Snog Rosie on reception.’

They ooh and ahh - Sasha actually claps a few times as if applauding an outstanding move.

‘And marry Martin,’ Tim grins, ‘if only for the tea and biscuits.’

Martin rolls his eyes at him, knowing it’s an attempt to make him blush and resenting the fact that he might still fall for it. Tim’s Hawaiian shirt is open at the clavicle. Martin had thought it was smart-casual.

’Cheers for that,’ he says. ‘I believe I’m entitled to this then -' he steals a sip from Tim’s JD and coke. 

‘Aww,’ Sasha smiles dreamily, ‘you guys would be so sweet together.’

Tim shakes his head, and shares a fond laugh with Martin as he says ‘straight girls...’ 

Sasha pouts. ‘You would be!’

‘Somehow I’m not sure I’m his type,’ Tim tells her.

Martin’s eyebrows his his hairline. ’Aren’t you everyone’s type?’ he asks.

It comes out bitter, but Tim seems to catch whatever is underneath and tinged with JD. They’re at a party after all, and it isn’t a lie.

Sasha slaps the table. The moment passes. ‘You know what is Tim’s type? Shots!’

‘Sasha, it’s still only ten -‘

But it is no use, she’s off to the bar faster than Tim can call ‘tequila!’ after her.

‘Well then,’ Tim says, scooting over, ‘your turn.’

Martin twists his empty glass round and round, watching it spin. He’d rather be dizzy than nervous. Being nervous is so boring. That’s him. Nervous and boring. 

‘Plenty of man-meat,’ Tim says ironically - the pickings are pretty slim on the ground in library science. Everyone’s either prim-and-proper Southern, too stiff-upper-lip to get into anything in a dingy booth, or really... not the best looking. And that’s not mean, Martin thinks, as he laughs out loud, he’s including himself in that.

‘Take your pick, we’re not playing teams. Though I happen to know Ed from reprographics is on yours, don’t ask me how.’ 

Martin makes a face.

‘Yeah, I know, repro doesn’t exactly reek of sexual energy.’

He’s not wrong, Martin thinks, but at least reprographics is less easy canon-fodder for teasing than their own department. There’s nothing less sexual than wearing your glasses on a string.

Of course, in trying not to look at Jon, he does.

Tim’s eyes light up. ’Nah...’

‘I’m just thinking!’

‘What?!’ Sasha demands as she slides back to base, spilling tequila on the sticky table, completely missing the look they’ve shared.

‘Nothing,’ Martin insists, staring at Tim, silently begging him not to. ‘I’m just looking -‘

‘Sasha... I think Martin might fancy our new head archivist...’

Sasha chokes on air as they both erupt in laughter. Martin doesn’t pat her on the back this time.

’I don’t!’ He tells them, trying not to whine, knowing that’ll only make it worse. ‘Shh!’

Sasha’s eyes are wide with alcohol and incredulity. She looks like she can’t believe what she’s hearing. ’But he’s such a dick to you!’

‘I know. I said I don’t.’

‘Is that your type or something?’ Tim asks through giggles, ‘Academic pricks? You can do better, Martin.’

‘It is not my type -’

‘He wears vests!’

‘Yeah, like I said...’

‘And he went to Oxford,’ Sasha says, as if there’s a hair in her mouth. Both her’s and Martin’s CVs list their academic history as strictly polytechnics.

‘So would you if you’d got in,’ he teases her, trying to pass the buck.

‘Oh no you don’t,’ Tim tells him. ‘You are finishing this round.’

‘Only if you drop it.’

‘Never. Avoid Elias, and..?’

Martin thinks about it. He looks back and forward, like watching a tennis match, laughing nervously. Over in the corner, the disco lights are pink and orange circles that catch Jon’s glasses. His stupid, square, rimless glasses that will never be attractive. Except that they make his eyes look bigger when he looks up over them.

Martin looks back at the table, mind searching for the least scandalous answer through a drunken haze that wants to find the truth. There’s very few options here that he likes.

He’s taken a second too long.

‘You wouldn’t marry me!?’ Tim asks with a very convincing mock outrage. ‘I married you!

‘For the tea!’

‘You can’t just use people for their tea, Tim,’ Sasha says, leaning on Martin’s shoulder again.

‘Does that mean nothing to you...’ Tim shakes his head, reaching for the tequila. ‘Come on, on three and then I wanna know who you’re picking over me.’

He lines the shot glasses up, hands them each a lime. ‘And if it’s Jon you’re doing another one.’

‘I am not.’

‘No salt,’ Sasha says sadly. But she downs it on three without even touching her lime.

The alcohol makes Martin’s tongue shrink back in his throat and he squints as he sinks his teeth into the relief of the lime. He chews on it, thinking.

Tim looks at him with an eyebrow raised

‘Well, I have to marry someone,’ he sighs, ‘and -’

‘Oh come on! You can snog the boss and marry me!’

Martin tries not to think about it. He looks over at the corner again. It would taste like warm red wine. ’I am not -’

‘Why not? You don’t think he’d be any good?’

Tim is getting loud now. The tequila gives a reverb to his voice that carries away from the corner and into the music.

‘Lower your voice,’ Martin hisses at him, ‘I’m not answering that!’

He very much doesn’t want to even consider it.

‘Does no one think he’s even remotely snog-able?’ Sasha asks, making herself laugh. Her elbow slips agains the table. ‘I mean is he... he’s not _bad_ looking?’

Martin says nothing.

Tim looks. He looks with his chin stuck out and his eyes squinted. He looks so intently that Jon catches him. Across the dancing staff and spinning lights, he looks back. His glasses flash and he double takes, brow furrowed, looking at each of them in turn. Martin can _feel_ his skin going blotchy beetroot.

Tim and Sasha erupt in childish giggles - year eight, pre-teen, anxiety inducing giggles.

He can’t laugh along with them. Not that he can’t laugh at his own expense. But he worries about Jon, seeing them laughing and looking over at him. He knows how that feels and hates it hates it hates it. Jon turns back to his conversation, frowning, and Martin watches his brain work with a warm pathos. He’s going to think about it now. If Martin were him, he’d think about it all evening.

The others keep laughing. And as they laugh the warmth turns to a chill of fear.

Jon’s not an idiot. He might realise. It would be bad. If he realised. Martin doesn’t even think he _likes_ him, not all that much. He’s not in deep enough to look past the fact that Jon really is... well. Rude and demanding and awkward and untrusting and judgemental and a cynic and... well, there are probably layers. Martin is sure there are layers but... Anyway. It isn’t that deep. It’s just tequila and a cup of tea here and there. He likes hearing Jon say ‘thank you’. That doesn’t mean anything.

But it would be bad. His boss finding out he’s been looking twice. Been handing him files with his fingers outstretched. The thought chills him. That would be so so bad. Not least because -

‘We don’t even know,’ he starts, low over Tim and Sasha’s uncontrollable laughter, ‘we don’t know if he’s...’

He peters out. Tim drys his eyes and finishes the thought. ‘Who’s team he’s playing for?’

‘Ohhhh,’ Sasha says, eyes widening with the fun of speculation. 

Martin seriously regrets bringing it up.

‘Place your bets now regarding the sexual preferences and activity of Jonathan Sims, head archivist of the Magnus Institute,’ Tim says, in his best impression of Jon’s rumble, holding his glass to his mouth like a tape recorder.

He makes himself laugh, and Martin begrudges him a smile. He hopes Sasha won’t join in again - she sets the whole table off and raises the volume tenfold. 

But instead her smile turns into a plaintive whine - ‘is no one going to snog _me_?’

‘Is no one going to snog the bloody archivist?’ Tim answers, loudly, and Martin watches, horrified, as Jon’s eyes twitch over at the mention of him. 

‘Martin?’ Tim pushes. ‘Office party’s the time for it. Maybe he’d stop being such an uptight -'

Martin snaps. 'Oh, give over, Tim!’

But it’s no use. Tim is already sliding out of the booth and eyeing a path across the dance floor. 'I will if you won’t!’

‘Don’t!’ Martin grabs at his arm, not knowing if it’s jealousy or protective instinct or embarrassment that compels him to grip so tightly, put all his weight behind it. ‘Tim, leave him alone...’ 

It’s not enough, and Tim manages to plow through their dancing colleagues, dragging Martin stumbling across the floor and over to the far corner. He sees it all happening - sees the next 20 seconds as if he’s moving down a conveyor belt of horror in a film. Slow motion, through treacle, powerless to stop. The image fills him with horror.

There is a second where Jon sees them coming and their eyes meet dead on. He must catch the dread. His eyes widen. Tim is leaning against the wall.

‘Alright boss?’

‘Sorry,’ Martin says, as he always says. He starts babbling furiously, his tequila-heavy tongue tripping over itself - 'he’s drunk, I’m probably just gonna take him home -'

But then Sasha is there. And her hands are creasing the stiff cotton of Jon’s collar. She kisses him squarely on the cheek.

Everyone stares. 

‘Happy Hanukah, Jon,’ she says, laughing.

Jon blinks, his mouth parted in a small O. There is wine on his teeth, Martin sees, and he screws his eyes tight, cringing.

‘Happy Hanukah, Sasha,’ he hears Jon say, and it’s raspy but surprising fine, even amused.

He opens his eyes and everyone is smiling.

‘We should probably be going,’ he says, twitching a smile at Jon with his head ducked as he guides Sasha away. ‘Tim, let’s go. You’ve had your fun.’

‘Aw, but Sasha -’

‘Taxi’s waiting.’

He’s a good liar, and manages to shepherd them away, back to the light of the dance floor. He’s half carrying Tim - one arm around his waist.

Then - from behind him, he hears Jon calling after them:

‘And Merry Christmas, all of you.’

‘Merry Christmas, boss!’ Tim slurs, waving back at him.

‘Merry Christmas,’ Jon says. And then he says: ‘Martin.’

Martin turns his head to look back. It’s not far enough, he can’t see the corner without turning around, not with Tim flopped against him. He knows he’ll wake up with a crooked neck, but he doesn’t feel it now. He feels warm. This is much better than ‘thank you’.

‘You too,’ is what he manages.

He bundles Tim and Sasha into a cab, sends them off to Barking, settles himself on the night tube, and thinks about it all evening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey everyone, hope youre enjoying so far or enjoying this as much as u remember if youre here again. it means so much to me that so many people have enjoyed this 🥺
> 
> you might know already but im currently taking fic commissions as a way to supplement my income doing something i love to do. you can find my post w prices n details [here](https://babyyodablackwood.tumblr.com/tagged/fic-commissions) ! 
> 
> i also now have a kofi! if you arent interested in a commission but u like my writing then pls feel free to chuck me a couple quid [here](https://ko-fi.com/chewsdaychillin) x
> 
> thanks again uws


	2. Washing up

This time the party is the opposite of festive. The canteen is lit with one fluorescent and a shit disco ball. A trestle table holds cans, party rings, and shit boxed wine. A laptop plugged into desk speakers plays tinny 90’s songs, and no one raises their voice above the music.

Elias had insisted. Morale has been low, he’d said, since Prentiss, and he thinks it’s important that the staff sees their wellbeing looked after. Jon thinks his wellbeing would be better looked after at home, where no one has a gun.

He’s skulking in a corner, watching everyone else, sipping slowly on red that tastes like cheap pre-mixed sangria, well aware that no one wants to talk to him as much as he doesn’t want to talk to them.

Tim and Martin are talking over by the table. They aren’t laughing like last time, he notes. Tim’s hand is clenched tightly around his can; Martin’s worries at the bottle label, picking at the sticky residue with his nail. Last time they were flushed and giggling, doing tequila and talking about _him_. Jon remembers - that wasn’t paranoia, he recognises his own name, even across a dance floor. They’re probably still talking about him. This time feels less harmless than a laugh at his expense. Now there’s a firmness to their discussion that doesn’t sit with the setting; Jon keeps one eye on them.

Sasha is with someone he doesn’t know - someone from the library? They’re sitting just slightly too far apart, too stiff. He watches them too. He feels them watching him back - though they’re only looking at each other. Whatever it is that’s off about it makes his skin prickle and his temperature sink from inside, like he’s swallowed an ice cube.

Anxiety he’s used to - skulking in the corner he’s practically an expert in. The paranoia is new. Or it’s old and just coming up over the surface to a level he’s not sure how to manage. He watches Tim raking a hand over his face - the scars stretch as the skin moves. Jon scratches at his own. Still not used to them. Not use to his own reflection.

‘Enjoying the party?’ Elias asks the back of his head.

Jon turns around and says ‘yes’, to get rid of him.

‘Good, good. You’re looking much better.’

‘Sure. Thanks.’

Elias pats his shoulder and he stiffens it instinctively. It’s logical to put your boss at suspect number one, he thinks, watching Elias leave, watching Tim give him no more than a brief eyebrow raise. It’s not paranoia to think that.Not when he’s lying - _you look much better._ Jon knows _that_ isn’t true.

He watches Elias back across the room before rolling his shoulder a few times and adjusting his braces. (Yes, they’re pretentious, and he knows Georgie would roll on the floor if she saw them - _really Jon, you look like Doctor Who._ But he’s run out of holes on this belt and isn’t eating as much as before.)

Tim makes him jump when he appears at his elbow. He’s holding half a litre bottle of Grey Goose.

‘Alright, boss.’

‘Hello. Spirits already?’

Tim holds up a finger. ‘Don’t judge. I’m exhausted and I don’t want to be here. And, according to chemistry -' he holds up the bottle ‘- alcohol is indeed a solution.’

Jon hums, considering that. Then in the silence he looks around and frowns. ‘Where’d Martin go?’

‘I dunno. Loo, probably?’ Tim suggests. He’s not lying but there’s exasperation or... something in his tone that suggests he knows something. ‘Or to write another poem. Find another dead body.’

Jon ignores his attempt at humour. 

Tim looks down at him with narrowed eyes. ’Why’re you asking?’

Jon ignores that too. ‘What were you talking about?’

‘Nothing.’ Tim says, with a loud full-stop. 

Jon sighs. He taps his wine glass, thinking. Tim clearly isn’t in the mood to be pressed, but... he thinks about the shredded bits of label at Martin’s feet. Something’s going on and he needs to know what it is and that’s it. He’s always needed to know, and now, well, now he needs to know everything and anything that might be relevant. The urge is stronger than thoughtless curiosity sometimes, now.

‘He just... He looked...’

'Well don't blame me for that!’ Tim snaps, but he tells the truth - ‘He thinks you’re angry with him.’

Jon frowns, running over what he’s done, said. Trying to list it. 'For what?’

Tim shrugs. ‘Running off. Not knowing who killed Gertrude. Being useless.’

Jon feels that chill sensation again - the ice cube slides down his oesophagus, settles and melts in his gut. It makes as little sense to him now as it did looking at Sasha. It makes no sense for him to feel that. He didn’t know Martin had heard him say those things.

‘I don’t think -' he starts. But Tim gives him a look and he sighs. ‘I haven’t spoken to him since I took his statement.’

Tim throws his hands up, the vodka splashing as he swings the bottle. ‘Well there you go! Maybe that’s step one!’

’You think I should talk to him?’

‘Unless you _want_ him to think you’re angry.’

Jon rolls his eyes. ‘Well of course I don’t, but...’ He looks across the hall at the empty spot by the table where Martin was standing. ‘I mean I already said it wasn’t his fault we got separated.’

Tim raises his eyebrows, blows out a breath.

‘What?’ Jon scowls at the look Tim gives him.

‘Nothing.’

 _He thinks you’re an arsehole._ Oh well. Nothing new.

‘Anyway,’ he says, offhandedly, forcing the sigh out of his voice, ‘I was probably just going to go home. Got a lot on -'

He looks over his shoulder, sensing someone’s eyes on him.

Tim follows his gaze. Elias is talking to someone from from HR, looking her in the face, eyes still.

‘I know,’ Tim says gravely, ‘but listen - whatever’s gonna kill you will get your whether you’re drunk or sober. Might as well take advantage of his generosity.’

He smiles ruefully and gives the bottle a shake. 

‘There,’ he says, splashing vodka into the already terrible wine.

Jon looks at the cup, then at Tim. Back to the cup, the waterline of which is at least two centimetres higher than before. ‘Are you trying to kill me?’

Tim actually laughs. But notably doesn’t answer the question. Instead he shrugs. ‘Now if something spooky happens you won’t even remember it.’

Tim’s advice makes a lot more sense by the time the cup is empty. Jon wonders the canteen and the corridors, watching people get more and more blurry. He tops up and cleans his glasses and watches people more.

By the time he stops watching and actually starts looking for Martin, he’s had at least... he doesn’t remember. But it’s more than he’s drunk in a long time. And when he thinks about all the horrible things in the boxes he's walking past, that seems like a good thing. There is far too much spooky stuff in his brain and the fact his brain seems to want more of it surely means there’s something wrong with it. And it keeps wanting to know where Martin is. It needed dousing in spirits.

He finds Martin in the kitchen, washing up other people’s mugs with a ratty sponge that’s long overdue for the bin. He starts when the door creaks open and splashes water down his jumper.

‘God, Jon! You can’t sneak up on people like that -'

‘I’m not sneaking!’ Jon scolds him, leaning against the fridge. ‘I’m just... walking.’

‘You made me jump.’

The room is swaying slightly but through his swimming eyes Jon notices Martin turning away from him and wiping his nose. He sniffs briefly before continuing with the washing, turning the hot tap all the way open so the water hits the sink loudly.

‘Why did you leave the party?’ Jon asks him, raising his voice over the rushing water.

‘No reason,’ Martin says, squishing the old sponge into a tea-stained Sports Direct mug. 'I just... it just got a bit loud.’

His head is low over the sink, his shoulders raised and tight. Jon’s brain is slow but he studies Martin’s breathing and frowns, more curious than concerned.

‘Are you crying?’

Martin drops the sponge. 'No! God. Why would you -’ he breaks off, shakes his head. The water stops running. When he turns round his face is very red. ‘Are you completely plastered?’

Jon shrugs. Maybe a bit. His feet are sliding. He slips slowly down the fridge until he’s sitting on the floor with his knees up to his chest. Martin looks at him in surprise, then at the door, and he realises he’s let his guard down. Anything could get him now. Maybe Tim really was trying to kill him.

He shrugs his braces off, lets the buckles hit the lino.

‘You are aren’t you?’ Martin actually laughs then, in disbelief, shaking his head. ‘Do you want a sandwich or something?’

‘No. Thank you.’

Martin considers him for a second. Then he takes a glass from the drying rack and runs it under the tap. 'How much of that wine did you -’

‘Oh, Tim put vodka in it.’

Martin blows out a long breath as he hands Jon water. ‘Oh wow.’

There is humour in his eyes but something else too. That same look he had earlier, talking with Tim whilst he peeled the sticker off his beer.

‘He said I’d die anyway so I might as well be drunk,’ Jon clarifies. It was something like that, anyway. He doesn’t remember the exact wording, which isn’t very archivist-y of him. Which is nice actually. 'And the wine was bad already.’

‘Right. Well, I suppose that makes some kind of sense,’ Martin allows.

There is a growing understanding in the gap between them now. Or at least Jon feels Martin start to understand. He strains his neck, head back against the fridge, to look up at him. His brow furrows as squints past the wine to take in Martin’s face, his complex expression, the wet strand of hair that’s sticking to his forehead. Martin looks away from him, drops his gaze like a hot plate.

Ah. Jon sips the water very slowly, tasting it. The caring thing, the attention - it could still all be an act. The suspect list is everyone, especially now he’s made himself vulnerable with dulled senses. And he’s sitting on the kitchen floor. He assess the distance between them.

’You’re not drunk?’ He asks, tilting his head to one side, trying to see if Martin’s eyes are still red.

Martin turns back to the sink. 'No.’ He says, picking up another mug, ‘I guess I’m still trying to not die.’ 

The lethal wine and vodka mix has completely ruined Jon’s ability to tell if that is sarcasm. It sounds like sarcasm, but sadder. He thinks it over, listening to Martin wash up, watching his feet as he side steps slightly from the sink to the draining board and back again. Martin doesn’t have big feet, but he isn’t light on them either. He wears converse, which aren’t very work appropriate, but tucks the laces inside so he doesn’t trip on them, which seems sensible. Jon’s head is very very heavy and the rhythm the running water and Martin’s shuffles is making him sleepy.

Then the tap turns off. And it is very quiet. Jon doesn’t mind it but Martin takes down a tea towel and starts drying the mugs. This is annoying for some reason. They would drip dry perfectly well, Jon thinks. And they aren’t even his to clean. Martin prefers the china ones when he can get them. He never uses the crappy ones you get with Easter eggs. He should just leave them. 

Jon shakes the heaviness out of his head. He came in with something to say. And thanks to Tim, it’s easy to start saying something, even if it comes out messy.

‘I, uh. I just wanted to say...’ He stops and swills his tongue round for a second, trying to make it work right. Martin turns the taps off again. ‘Tim said you thought I was angry but I’m not.’

Martin whips round. ‘Tim said what?’

‘I’m not angry,’ Jon says again, and is surprised to find he doesn’t sound it. He sounds very quiet and matter of fact, like he’s talking to wild horse. 'I know you didn’t run off on purpose.’

‘Okay... that’s good,’ Martin says slowly, separating the syllables. He still looks like he keeps looking - his face has no levity or lift to it. It is downturned. He scuffs his unprofessional trainers on the floor. ‘Are you feeling alright?’

‘Yeah,’ Jon frowns, watching Martin’s irritating shoes. He’s not getting it out right. He’s sure it’s supposed to go differently. 'Yeah. Fine.’

Evidently his face says something else. Martin sits down next to him on the floor, cross-legged like primary school.

‘Drink that,’ he says, holding up the still full glass of water. He watches Jon drink it without looking away, and the corner of his mouth twitches once the glass is empty.

‘There,’ he says, and he looks like he’s going to get up again, to put the glass in sink. And that is even more irritating because Jon doesn’t want him to. So he starts talking again.

Starts all at once, the words tumbling like building blocks out of his mouth, pulling his tongue forward in his mouth with the weight of them.

'I don’t think you're useless and I shouldn’t have said that.’ Martin is just looking at him, his eyes getting bigger. He keeps going, words seem to keep coming. ’I was wrong, before. I don’t think that anymore.’

‘Oh,’ Martin says. He sounds unsure. Or maybe sort of shy? 'Okay.’

He sounds small. And that isn’t the goal. Jon rolls his head back against the fridge, screwing his eyes up. He has never in his life been good at this.

‘I know I’m a bit...’ And he can only sigh because there’s far too many words that could go in there. Most of them he’s heard and probably deserved. ‘I just... am.’

Martin hums as if he gets it. But he says ’sure,’ which isn’t enough.

‘And there’s... a lot happening,’ Jon explains, reaching, stretching across a long, long gap, fingers straining for something. ‘A lot going on. At the moment.’

‘Yeah,’ Martin says, and his arms are folded but he gives Jon a nod at least. ‘Yeah there is.’

‘And,’ Jon says, before realising he doesn’t know what to say next.

He opens his eyes and see Martin watching him think. His mouth is very dry. He tries again:

‘And...’ 

‘And?’ Martin asks him. Asks him softly and patiently, like he’s leading an animal to water, or a child to the answer of a difficult sum. It should be very annoying. It is very annoying. 

But he lets out the breath he’s been holding and looks away. He looks at Martin’s ratty laces, tucked away inside his shoes to protect themselves. ‘And I’m... I’m sorry.’

Martin smiles then. Just a small one, with his head ducked, but it’s nice. He has nice teeth, Jon thinks. Not perfect, obviously. Too good to have struggled though sleepless nights with a thick retainer in though, too good for NHS braces. Just slightly crooked in a human way. They’ve not been messed with or paid attention to - they’re just his. He has a tiny chip in his incisor - the bottom one you can only see when he’s really smiling, or shushing, or shouting, which he doesn’t do often, or hitching his breath.

‘Well,’ he says, ‘thank you. For saying that.’ 

He sounds warmer now. Everything is warmer then. Relief comes in a big wave that rolls and washes over them and slides over the floor, reaching further and further into every corner. Jon is going to smile and then thinks better of it. The wave comes again but it could very well be nausea. 

He holds his cheek through it. Then rubs at the scars to pass it off.

Martin frowns at him. ‘Should you be scratching -’

‘Oh, I’m not...’ Jon starts, but he very clearly is. He goes on as quickly as his stomach will let him. ‘It’s not worms. I just, uh. Not used to them yet.’ He looks up and catches his reflection in the tap. ‘I don’t like looking at them.’

‘They don't look bad,’ Martin tells him, very quietly. Then he tuts and pulls Jon’s hand away from his face. ‘Don’t scratch them.’ His thumb is on the inside of Jon’s wrist.

And then there is more nausea and Martin’s hand is on Jon’s shoulder as he pitches forward, groaning.

‘Bloody hell,’ Martin is laughing, ‘you’re not going to be sick are you?’

They walk back to the party together. Very slowly, because Jon is still swaying and tripping over his own feet in a very un-academic way, and Martin is laughing at him and walking behind him with his knees bent like a mother with a toddler.

‘Oi oi, I think the boss is wankered...’ Tim says as they clatter back into the canteen. He’s just as bad - a slow, melancholy kind of nearly black-out. His mouth is set in a downturn. But he helps them out into the cold air.

Martin gawps at the kebab shop employee who tries to charge him a fiver for a chip butty. Jon says he’s not hungry anyway, but Martin insists, and hands over his plastic with only a small grumble.

He seems to have a special talent for flagging a cab. A Friday night in London, with a drunk man hanging off his arm, _and_ a polystyrene box in hand? Nearly an impossible task. But Jon isn’t cold as he slides into the back seat, so they can’t have been out for long.

‘Get home safe, won’t you?’

‘Not really up to me, is it?’

Martin smiles, but it looks like a sad one. At least his face isn’t red anymore. He closes the door and waves the cab off, not turning around.

Jon’s halfway through his extortionately priced chip butty before he realises he hasn’t eaten all day, and that Martin hasn’t bought him food before, and that he didn’t say thank you. Predictive text suggests: ‘have’, ‘you’, and ‘no’. Instead he types ‘thank you fo r the roll’.

In response he gets: ‘you’re welcome’ and then, a second later, ‘but it’s a bap :)’

He hits the pillow thinking about the distinction between bread types, which is stupid. But it doesn’t give him nightmares.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there we go. the first jon chapter. he is a tricky bastard to write - gotta balance that pining and those arsehole vibes. let me know what u think :) (and yes - we will be getting angstier before we get to the end) 
> 
> xx


	3. Spiders

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> deep season 2, deep paranoia.... time for another office party?

Martin stands outside Jon’s office door and unconsciously undoes his top button to free his throat. Unconsciously? Consciously. No? He does it back up.

He’s not asking Jon _to_ the party. Obviously. He just worries about Jon missing out. About him sitting all alone with just a lamp on, straining his eyes to read some horrible thing that’ll just make him more reclusive. He’s been weird, recently. Jumpy. He takes the outside line around corners when he comes out into the corridor. He carries his keys between his fingers now.

The wine is just to help Martin persuade him. Just like bringing a tea or a sandwich or something.

Jon sighs from behind the door, like he always does. ‘Statement ends,’ he says heavily. He starts to say something disparaging, putting on his archivist voice and pretending no one’s listening.

Martin was going to let him finish recording. He was; he knows he’s annoying, barging in and all, but... Jon’s statement voice, his pitch dropped and held down, firmly forcing steadiness that does only passable job of cynicism - it makes everything tighten in Martin’s chest.

He raises his hand to knock - if he just walks in Jon’ll jump a foot in the air.

But before he even gets the chance he hears the scraping of a chair across the floor. Then a crash. Then he realises Jon isn’t reading anymore.

He doesn’t knock - just barges through in panic.

‘Jon?! Are you -’

Jon is frozen in the corner, his back flat against a filing cabinet. His eyes are wide and stuck still, fixated at a spot on the desk.

Martin stares at him at absolute shock. Then follows his eyes to the desk.

It looks normal. Except there’s a decent sized house spider sitting on the tape recorder.

Martin looks at the spider, then at Jon, who’s barely seemed to notice him coming in. He hasn’t moved, but for his chest rising and falling with a shaky, forced steadiness.

It would be funny. It has all the pieces of being funny, and maybe if Martin had had that second pint it would be. But Jon looks like... well, like he’s seen a ghost. He doesn’t even seem embarrassed. Beyond it, in fact. His eyes still haven’t moved, his glasses slipped down his nose.

Martin goes to the desk first. Puts down the wine and plastic cups.

‘Hello,’ He says gently to the spider. ‘Come here, then...’

He shepherds it, poking slowly at its legs until it scuttles onto his palm.

He closes his hands tightly around the spider, so Jon can’t see it.

‘Window,’ he says, low and purposefully casual.

Jon moves slowly from the filing cabinet, still watching Martin’s clasped hands, and opens the tiny, high window. Martin waits for him to move away from it before tipping the spider outside.

It takes Martin holding up his empty palms for Jon’s breathing to slow down. Another good twenty seconds before he clears his throat - anxiety fading into embarrassment - and rubs the back of his neck.

‘Thank you,’ he says, and coughs again.

‘It’s okay...’ Martin eyes him as he gingerly returns to the desk and lifts the tape recorder, peering underneath it.

‘I don’t like spiders,’ he says defensively, but it lacks his normal bite.

‘I can see that...’

‘Don’t laugh.’ Jon tells him, but without any force. He’s asking, actually.

‘I’m not laughing,’ Martin promises.

‘I do have... reasons.’

‘I believe you.’

There is a long pause. Jon shuffles some papers on his desk.

‘Yes. Well. Anyway.’

His hands are still trembling slightly, like he’s had far too much coffee.

‘Are you alright?’ 

‘Yes. Of course. I’m fine.’

The lie aches in Martin’s chest and he asks what he came in to ask before he can stop himself:

‘Are you gonna come up to the party?’

Jon blinks. ‘What party?’

‘You know what party. The library thing. Sarah’s leaving do?’

Jon pulls out a draw. He checks it for spiders before rummaging for a paper clip. Martin waits. He’s got very used to Jon ignoring him, but now he knows the rudeness is often a cover for something else... well, it’s still rude. But Jon’s fingers are unsteady on the paperclip. So he waits. 

Jon slams the drawer shut and shakes his hand out.

’No one wants me there.’ He states.

Martin sighs. Something inside him deflates with worry and pity. Stuff has been... tricky since Tim and Sasha found out about the stalking, and of course, really, _rationally_ he knows he should be on Tim’s side. Jon’s probably stalking _him_ too which is obviously worrying but... it still hurts him to hear the way Jon says it - with practiced finality, as if he’s reciting an established fact. He’s used to it - to not being wanted. 

Martin sits down slowly on the corner of the desk and ducks his head, trying to catch Jon’s eye-line.

‘I do.’ He says. It was going to be light and fun, but he _hears_ his honesty when it comes out. 

Jon frowns at that. He clips his statements together, turning the words over in his head.

‘I brought wine,’ Martin says quickly. He cringes - _Obviously you brought wine you idiot it’s on the table -_ andgoes to uncork it. He still has a corkscrew on his keys.

’Come on,’ he pops the cork, places the plastic cups out on the desk, ’you can’t possibly rather read all that awful stuff than go to _one_ party.’

Jon watches him with something between interest and suspicion as he pours. He doesn’t take the cup Martin puts in front of him immediately. A second passes where Martin worries he’s picked some awful wine but -

He sighs. God, this isn’t going to be easy.

Martin takes a long drink. ‘It’s not poison. Promise.’

‘Ha ha,’ Jon says sardonically. But his hand is steadier now.

He takes a sip and actually hums in appreciation - it must be a decent wine. Martin reads the label, trying to commit it to memory. He’d like to hear that hum again. 

‘There,’ he smiles, ‘that wasn’t so hard.’

Jon pulls his chair out and sits, one knee up against his chest. He rolls his eyes loudly. ’Don’t be patronising, Martin.'

‘Sorry...’ Martin taps against the desk, against his knee, against the plastic cup. ‘I just worry,’ he says, looking into his cup, ‘about you being down here on your own all the time.’

Through the milky plastic he catches Jon looking up at him, in such a way that he lowers the cup and looks back. He likes this angle - when Jon’s sat at his desk and looks up, over the rim of his glasses, through his lashes.

God, that’s more than a bit pathetic, isn’t it?

He’s rather past the point of denial but he probably should steer clear of stuff _that_ pathetic. He schools his face into exasperated disapproval.

Jon puts his cup down slowly. ’When I’m on my own there’s far less to worry about.’ He says it very matter of factly. 

Martin opens his mouth to refute that - but he only sighs. It sounds awful from someone else, but he gets it. He’d say the same at least half the time.

’That... I suppose that’s sort of fair.’

There’s quiet again. But a relaxed quiet. The quiet of understanding. Martin smiles into it -

‘What would you do about the spiders though?,’ he asks, sipping wine and relishing in the feeling of his tongue loosening, letting him tease. ‘If you’re on your own all the time.’

‘I would have dealt with it!’ Jon scowls. But he stammers a bit as he admits - ‘Eventually. And you promised you wouldn’t laugh.’

But they both laugh.

‘Come up to the party,’ Martin says, keeping his voice friendly, free of entreaty. ‘I promise there won’t be any spiders.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t possibly-‘

‘I promise I won’t let them near you.’ 

Jon shakes his head. ‘Tim won’t want me there.’ 

‘Well...’ Martin sighs. He doesn’t really have an argument for that - there’s no way Jon will believe it and that’s fair. He gropes for a silver lining - and the wine helps him find it. He laughs to himself: ‘Well, at least you don't have to worry about him trying to kiss you again.’

Jon looks up at him, and all traces of arachnophobia are gone but his eyes are full of alarm.

‘What?’

Oh this was a mistake. This was definitely a mistake.

‘Ah,’ Martin starts very slowly, ‘at, at that first party...’

Realisation dawns in Jon’s face. ‘That’s what..? Oh.’

He pauses, and Martin searches desperately for something to break the static silence before it gets awkward. But then Jon actually laughs. Well, scoffs, but it’s recognisable.

‘You looked so worried I thought he was going to hit me.’

Martin snorts his own small laugh, mostly to cover the warmth creeping up his neck and round his ears. _You looked so worried._ God, he noticed... 

‘No,’ he says, rubbing the back of his neck, ’no, we, uh. It was stupid.’

He takes another drink, draining his cup.

Jon’s still thinking, his brows furrowed, eyes narrowed. He watches Martin top them both up. Then his forehead unfurls itself and he sits back in his chair.

‘He doesn’t,’ he coughs, ‘but he doesn’t like me? Does he?’

‘No,’ Martin says, slowly, truthfully. ‘Well. Not at the moment.’

He hopes that will be enough. But Jon is looking at him pointedly. Oh!

‘Oh, you mean like that!’ Martin splutters as he finally catches on. ‘No! No, he didn’t, we... Uh well...’

He rubs at the flush on the back of his neck, rubbing it yellow-white and hoping against hope it stays that way.

’We were just being stupid. It was a dare or something,’ an easy lie - _or something_ \- ‘I don’t remember.’

‘Is that why Sasha..?’

‘Yeah...’

Jon nods slowly, humming into his cup. There isn’t really anything to say to that, he’s just turning it over in his mind. Martin waits for the subject to change, still worrying at his neck, regretting doing his top button back up. Jon is very good at changing the subject, hopefully it’ll be any second now -

But he doesn’t. ‘You were upset,’ he says, without his normal gravel, ‘I remember.’

‘No,’ Martin goes in quickly, trying to shake it off, ‘Not... upset. I just...’ he hits a wall.

Jon is looking up at him again, intently. He always looks with thought behind it, but this has something beyond his normal squinted scrutiny. Now he’s looking with his eyes open. Wide. Martin sucks in a breath, thinking of Shakespeare - _he falls to such perusal of my face as he would draw it..._

‘I didn’t want them to bother you,’ he mumbles, ‘or, or make you... uncomfortable.’

Jon finally blinks. ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘oh, no. It-it was fine. I don’t need _chivalry_.’ He notices his bite there, notices Martin’s face, and sighs. ‘I mean,’ he tries again, smiling ruefully, ‘I _can_ cope.’

‘Yeah,’ Martin cringes, yet again, ‘of course, I didn’t mean -‘

’I wouldn’t have minded.’

Martin blinks. The wine shakes in his cup like Jurassic Park as he puts it down too hard. His brain plays static, old scratchy VHS static as he struggles to take that in. Wouldn’t have minded... _what?_ Jon is still staring at him. As if he knows something. Or - he’s looking for something? It isn’t a cold stare. Wouldn’t have minded what? If they’d bothered him? If they’d come over and done their dare and... if Tim had kissed him? If _Martin_...?

 _Nope_. That sounds a lot like wishful thinking and a lot like something he’d told himself he wouldn’t be thinking about.

Martin clears his throat, slaps his knees. ‘Right, well. Shall we go then?’

Jon looks away, takes his glasses off and rubs at his eyes. He sighs, deep and gravely.

‘Come on, don’t be a dick about it,’ Martin tells him, ‘just one. We don’t have to talk to anyone else.’

Jon doesn’t budge. But his eyes are softening now - or perhaps Martin just notices it now, knowing his reservations are the opposite of high and mighty. He sees it underneath.

He hops down off the table and grabs the wine. 'Or I’ll just leave you alone with the spiders.’

He turns to the door and takes a whole step before playfully throwing a look back over his shoulder. Jon actually laughs at that, well, snorts. He pushes back his chair and shucks his braces up onto his shoulders.

Martin hasn’t failed to notice the weight loss, of course he hasn’t. But he still... hasn’t quite got used to the braces yet. That’s how he’ll phrase it. He’s not too proud to admit he does kind of like them. They should look costume-y but somehow he thinks they look rather refined. Well, nerdy and Victorian, but still refined. When they hang down around Jon’s knees it’s almost like a layer’s come off, in a chaste, frazzled sort of way. It feels like something he shouldn’t be looking at, not whilst they’re still technically at work.

’Fine,’ Jon says, and Martin starts listening again instead of looking. ‘One. But I’m not drinking anything except this.’

‘Sure,’ Martin smiles. It’s paranoia, of course, Jon won’t trust anything else, and that’s nothing to smile about. But Martin remembered the wine and it seems to have gone down a treat. He thinks ‘we can share’. And then realises he’s said it out loud.

‘And I’m not staying if Elias is there.’

‘Very reasonable.’

Jon shrugs his jacket on, shaking his head with a small smile. It might even be called fond, Martin thinks. Maybe that’s projection. He feels his own mouth mirroring it and his own smile is all fondness. Stupid sappy fondness. Whatever. He’s _somehow_ got Jon out of the basement and that’s all that matters.

He holds the door open. But before they go Jon reaches across the desk and turns off the tape recorder.

As soon as it clicks off Martin feels the absence of it’s creaky spooling. The room is far far too silent now. He can hear his stomach dropping. 

‘That...’ He wants to choose his words carefully, but cant really think of any better than - ‘that was on the whole time?’

‘I... uh, not the whole time,’ Jon says very gradually. He pulls his cuffs. ‘I don’t know when it came on.’

Martin steps back towards the desk. He puts the wine down and tries very hard not to take it personally. ‘You put it on.’

‘I- I suppose I did,’ Jon starts, but he doesn’t sound at all like he believes it. ‘I don’t remember. I don’t really notice doing it anymore. Sometimes I think it just comes on by itself.’

He says it all very fast and shifts from foot to foot. His hands are scrunched up in his jacket pockets and Martin really wishes he could still them, calm Jon down and tell him it’s all okay and no one’s watching but... Firstly it might not be true but more importantly... Well it would require trust wouldn’t it? Trust he thought he’d got now.

He remembers Jon’s face when he’d come clean about his CV - the relief, this calm sense of disbelief, like he couldn’t believe he’d ever worried. Martin remembers how he’d felt - a thousand times lighter. Younger too - turns out pretending to be older than you are actually does age you. It was a nice moment, despite the shouting. After the shouting.

Now he feels the presence of that memory in this moment. It weighs on them, under the already low ceiling, as he tries to get them towards honesty. He wants Jon to trust him.

‘Do you have to record us just... talking?’ He asks. He tries very hard not to sound plaintive and small as he goes on. ‘I thought we were okay... now...’

‘It’s not...’ Jon sighs. He shifts again, and there is frustration in his voice, a defensiveness as he tries to explain his way out of a corner. ’It’s not that,’ he says, ‘I just _need_ things on tape. I need to have a record of -'

‘Of us talking about the Christmas party?’

Jon throws his hands up. ‘Of everything!’

His raised voice echos slightly, so that the silence that follows it is far quieter. Martin doesn’t flinch, just looks at the floor. He’s heard it before - that loudness that comes in panic, in knowing you won’t be understood but needing to say _something_.

But he doesn’t look up. Doesn’t press it. 

He sees Jon’s shoes step into his peripheral.

‘I really don’t remember,’ Jon murmurs, his voice soft enough to be an apology. ‘I suppose I must have, yes, maybe but - honestly... I don’t remember pressing the button.’ 

He takes another small, shuffling step.

‘Honestly.’

Martin looks back up at him. He is lying. He has to be lying, because tape recorders aren’t sentient. They can’t just turn themselves on. But something in his face is not lying. So maybe they can. Stranger things have happened. Martin smiles, shakes his head.

‘I suppose it could have been the spiders.’

He picks the wine back up and enjoys Jon’s half laugh. It’s not about him, after all. Not about whether he _feels_ trusted or not. As long as Jon gets out of the basement, out of his head, even for one evening. He didn't come in here to _get_ anything. 

‘Come on then,’ Martin says, and he holds the door. 'One drink.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the shakespeare is from hamlet, act 2, scene 1: 
> 
> He took me by the wrist and held me hard.  
> Then goes he to the length of all his arm,  
> And, with his other hand thus o'er his brow,  
> He falls to such perusal of my face  
> As he would draw it. Long stayed he so.  
> At last, a little shaking of mine arm  
> And thrice his head thus waving up and down,  
> He raised a sigh so piteous and profound  
> As it did seem to shatter all his bulk  
> And end his being. That done, he lets me go,  
> And, with his head over his shoulder turned,  
> He seemed to find his way without his eyes,  
> For out o' doors he went without their helps,  
> And to the last bended their light on me.
> 
> This is the very ecstasy of love
> 
> -eye emoji-
> 
> hope u guys enjoyedddd :) sadly i will not be uploading next week for sure and probs gonna be a longer wait for the next chapter. we're getting through them seasons tho - next time - pre unknowing antics and office gossip....


	4. Gossip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: None of this is.... t-t-t ... conducive to a work environment....

Some or other of the bigger departments throws a small do a couple of nights before the van is booked to drive them up to Yarmouth. A party before the end of the world. It seems tasteless to go, and Jon hadn’t planned on it. But the world might end, so Basira said they may as well - what harm could it do really? Daisy and Melanie had agreed, and Tim... is probably upstairs somewhere with a bottle of something. He isn’t really talking to them right now. Has his own preparations to do. 

They all do.

Jon only came upstairs looking for a hole punch. Which is obviously stupid considering, but that’s his way of coping.He still wants things treasury tagged.

Music spills out of the doorway when he passes the party, loud and all drum kit. One of those 2000s British bands. The something or others.

The lights are low inside, and he slows to a sneaking crawl, looking to assess the state of his... coworkers? Team mates? Bodyguards? Friends, he supposes. That’s what he’s recently decided. It doesn’t feel unpleasant to think of them like that.

He might put that on tape later.

He can’t see them, but he picks out Basira’s voice, loud with the touch of liquor.

‘I just don’t see it!’

Someone sighs. ‘Don’t see what, detective?’ It’s Melanie.

He stops to listen, tucked behind the doorframe. If there is something Basira isn’t seeing he should know what it is - might be able to see it himself. He’s about to feel angry about trusting her if there’s something she hasn’t told him about the plan. The remnants of mistrust he’s decided to put away are still there somewhere even if he very much hopes they all prove his little doubts wrong. But then she sort of laughs sort of scoffs and says -

‘I just don’t see what it is about Jon that makes him want to get his grafting boots on.’

Oh. Not about the ritual then.

Three things come to mind: one - it’s always strange to hear your own name in the third person; two - who is ‘he’? And three - what in the goddamn hell are grafting boots?

He’s heard of grafting, obviously, he’s not geriatric. Not sure of the origin. Off some awful reality tv show, he reckons. He’s heard it most in the East of London, with a long ah. But it might be from somewhere else.

Originally meant ‘working hard’. It’s fair to say the archival staff mostly do that, if not all at their actual jobs. But people don’t use the word like that anymore, not much. It means... flirting. He thinks. He was under the impression it was a verb. To graft. To be grafting. Not sure when the boots came into it.

But that can’t be right.

(The girls are both laughing.)

He pulls a face that mirrors Melanie’s response.

‘Oh, Jesus don’t -‘

‘Really though!’ Basira keeps going, ‘come on you don’t see it either do you?’

‘I’m not getting into it.’

‘You know you want to...’

Their tones are both sing-song and happier than Jon has heard them. It would be nice to hear in any other situation - nice to hear them contended, to hear them say his name without any bitterness or anger.

But he doesn’t like it. He pushes the cuffs of his jumper up, feeling hot and clammy. Probably should leave before they get into it. But he doesn’t leave - rooted to the spot with the need to _know._

Whatever they’re ‘not seeing’, he’s sure it’s not a good sign. Something masochistic or just bloody nosy wants to hear it anyway.

_Get into it get into it get into it._

Melanie groans, playfully irritated. ‘I mean you know I agree with you there... I mean whatever floats his boat but...’

‘Come on. He’s what, a five? Without the blood and worms.’

There's a pause. ‘I mean I feel like taste comes into it...’

‘You think lower?!'

Melanie says nothing but Jon can hear her shrugging and imagines the gleeful reticence on her face that's making Basira laugh.

'Look, I know I’m kind of his mate, but you can tell me. Go on, let off some steam.’

‘Well. Let’s just say... I am not seeing it.’

They’re still laughing.

Jon’s not sure he’s ever floated any boats. He supposes a part of him should be offended. A part of him is, probably, and it might well come up later. Right now he’s still primarily concerned with: who the hell are they on about?

I mean... there’s only Daisy and Basira, who he’s sure are far too invested in each other, in whatever way they are, to notice anyone else. And besides, whatever his boat is Daisy probably hates it enough to set it on fire like a viking funeral. And Melanie. Melanie doesn’t like him much either. Clearly she has steam to let off, and he hopes at least the teasing will suffice over a knife.

He’s just about decided he trusts them. No boat floating is involved in that decision.

They did say ‘ _he_ ’. ‘ _His_ boat’, ‘ _his_ grafting boots.’

There’s Tim. Tim who apparently strode right across the room to try to kiss him that one Christmas. So he can’t be that hideous, whatever Melanie and Basira think. Tim doesn’t come across as someone with terrible taste. That makes him feel a little better.

No, come on. _What’re you thinking?_ Tim doesn’t like him. Tim would probably jump at the chance to sock him one right to the jaw. That Christmas was a long time ago. They don’t even talk anymore, really. And apparently it was all a stupid game anyway.

He doesn’t think Basira would talk about Tim like she is anyway, laughing like that.

Then who?

Oh, well there’s Martin.

Oh. 

His face screws up. _No_. Martin’s just... nice. Martin doesn’t... _like_ him, he just likes people. People in general. He washes up other people’s mugs and brings extra plastic cups. That’s just what he’s like.

They can’t be talking about Martin. Can they?

‘But,’ Melanie says over the laughing, ‘grafting’s probably a bit strong.’

Jon can _hear_ Basira rolling her eyes. 'You think so?’

‘Yeah, come on. Grafting implies conscious flirting.’

_Flirting?_

_Conscious_ flirting?

Well they can’t be talking any sense, he decides. They can’t be talking about Martin.

Okay, so Martin brings tea. But tea isn’t flirting, it’s just tea. He puts the kettle on for himself, he’s already got one mug out of the cupboard, why not make two? That’s just the way Martin’s brain works.

And he worries. But he’s just a worrier. Wanting someone to quit smoking or get more sleep isn’t flirting.

Melanie continues. ‘It’s more... what? Fawning?’

‘Ouch,’ Basira laughs.

Jon doesn’t laugh.

Fawning?

It sounds horrible. The image of a small deer trembling on its skinny coltish legs. He hates them thinking that applies to Martin. Okay, Martin worries, but he doesn’t _fawn._ He’s just... just -

‘Fussing?’ Basira suggests.

‘Fussing I’ll allow.’

Jon strokes the thin white line on his neck, the fresh one, and remembers Martin’s face when Daisy’s mouth had curled into that smug smile - _‘that one was me.’_ Livid white.

But that’s just nice. He’d hope (without vocalising it of course - what right has he to hope?) that anyone would care. He’d hope that anyone would be unhappy to see his neck bloodied up. Maybe Daisy aside...

When it was all done and everyone had left, Martin had brought him the first aid kit and had taken the papers off the plaster one at a time, like you’re meant to if you do it properly.

Jon supposes he’d hope most that Martin would care. But only because the bar for Martin caring is so much lower than everyone else’s that if Martin _hadn’t_ cared it would set alarm bells off.

It couldn’t be true. Gossip never is, in his experience. Notonce has gossip regarding himself ever been true.

Could it?

No. That would be wishful thinking.

‘ _Wishful thinking?_ ’ He asks himself out loud.

He tunes Melanie and Basira out, having to stop and analyse _that_ for a second

He doesn’t sit around wishing people liked him. It would be pathetic enough in a platonic sense - he’s just decided to trust _them_ , he can’t rush to wish the same from in return. In a romantic way... that would be a whole other level of pathetic that he very much isn’t.

He isn’t wishful. And he hasn’t thought about it.

He _looks_ , fine. He looks sometimes.

But he isn’t _consciously_ looking _._ He’s just watching. That’s his whole purpose now, isn’t it? Watching. It's an instinct.

That’s why he knows Martin only wears his glasses when he’s reading spreadsheets on the computer, or at the end of the month when he’s run out of contacts. The only reason why he’s noticed that Martin reads yesterday’s Evening Standard rather than that morning’s Metro. That he sometimes smiles at the tape recorders when he sees them around and his small smiles aren’t completely even and he has half a dimple in one cheek. That his jeans are always full when he drops another pile of papers and bends over to pick them up.

Oh. That’s a surprise.

Jon wonders what other surprises his head has buried. He knows himself well enough to know he’s good at burying things, and was even before he started changing and thoughts he hadn’t thought started surprising him.

He had said he wouldn’t have minded. All that time ago. He remembers the conversation. But he meant the joke. He’d meant he could take a joke.

Had he meant that? Or meant he wouldn’t have minded...

Something in his brain slides open and the thought of Martin kissing him crashes into it.

And with a dawning horror he _recognises_ that thought. It isn’t the first time he’s thought about it.

And it’s a good thought.

(Maybe not so good in front of everyone at a party as a joke.) But he thinks about Martin kissing him in his office, in the kitchen, sitting on the floor by the fridge, against a shelf in the library, in a cafe over a sweet lunch.

Well, shit.

The back of his head smacks against the door frame as he leans against it. Heavy - thick and clouded like he’s walked through incense or past a keen department store employee.

The music washes over him like a dense wave and he is deep, deep under it all, the sound muffled through the crackling water of his thoughts. It doesn’t feel entirely human, but maybe he really is that dumbstruck at the idea... well, the _ideas_ , plural, that are sucking him through the floor.

The concept of Martin _liking_ him is a heavy one on its own. Hell of a pull. How he’s reacted to it is another and now -

Now he’s thinking about how he’s _acted_.

Hopefully not as unsteady and red as he’s acting now, glued to the floor and eavesdropping on _office gossip_ like a teenager with a crush. The idea of it, of Martin knowing what he’s just thought about for what isn’t the first time... 

He feels like that image of the fawn. Oh shit _._ He’s glad he didn’t know before, if this is how thinking about it feels. Imagining going red whilst Martin was sticking a plaster on his neck only makes him redder now.

Oh _shit_.

At least he’s been normal. He can still be normal. It might be one the last nights of the world, after all. It would all seem very rushed if he... what? Did something about it?

And it’s not like he’d know what to do. Martin writes poetry. He’s a romantic. He’s _nice._ Jon could never write poetry. He isn’t romantic. He’s barely nice. And it’s been a long time since he kissed anyone. He couldn’t just. What, lunge for it?

No. Why would he? That sort of gesture rarely goes over well. And he doesn't want that. Not in reality. It's not the sort of thing he normally wants. Plus he's got rituals to stop and... everything else. 

He’s just deciding that the feeling is decidedly unhelpful - the world is ending after all - and that it’ll pass, when Basira says something, possibly the only thing, that could pull him back out of the floor.

‘Poor boy.’

Melanie hums in agreement. She sounds genuinely sympathetic. ‘Maybe some time apart’ll do it good. Not that Jon deserves it.’

That’s when Jon leaves.

He’s been his usual self this whole time. Whether or not that’s a good thing, he’s not sure Melanie is wrong. He trusts her to at least talk mostly sense. And not to actively wish bad things on Martin.

'Grafting'... working hard. Trying. They think Martin's been _trying_ and he's been his usual self this whole time. He thinks about the fawn again and feels cold spreading through his feet and fingers. It isn't a pleasant thought. 

He paces away, thinking about it. He’ll keep being normal whilst he keeps thinking. Just not cruel. He hopes he hasn't been cruel. 

There's got to be a hole punch upstairs somewhere. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello again! soz we've had a bit of a hiatus and that ths chapters a bit short - it was gonna be one big one but i got carried away an i oop.... next chapter is still gonna be pre unknowing antics and should be w u soon............ 
> 
> u may also have notice the chapter count has gone up. hehehe .
> 
> let me know what u think of the Realisation... xx
> 
> (disclaimer p2: opinions expressed by basira and melanie are not my own and i will not be rating jon out of ten in the comment sneuiwbigub)


	5. Testament

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> jon out here grafting for a hole punch... who will he run into -eye emoji-

Martin hasn’t gone to the party either. He didn’t want to drink - not when he’s got a plan that actually might work, that he finally feels strong with. He’s been shut up in the assistants’ office - just him in there now - recording for an hour. Or rather, thinking for an hour and pressing record just the once.

All that thought went out of the window as soon as he hit the button. The spooling of the thin plastic somehow makes his tongue unwind too. Maybe he’s just getting used to the sound of it.

The tape in his hand is the product of it. His testament. Confessional. What Jon asked for. His statement.

He stands in the corridor, alone, at designated drop off point. A small shoebox that’s become something of amakeshift pigeonhole. Martin had started it, so he could do the rounds before heading down to Jon’s office. It made sense to save everyone else the trip. And of course, it meant he got to make more trips.

He had thought about getting a nicer box, but now there’s a neat sticky label on it that says ‘statements for the archive’ in Jon’s handwriting. So he kept it.

He stands in front of it now like a child with a christingle, cautious and protective before the alter, turning the tape over in its transparent little case. It doesn’t offer much protection, doesn’t even have a card to protect the thread itself from prying eyes. Just a tiny post-it with his own name on it in quiet lowercase.

‘Martin.’

He jumps and the tape clatters to the floor.

‘For God’s sake, Jon!’ His voice is too high, but he laughs through it, and when Jon laughs too, one of his small breathy ones, he doesn’t mind so much.

He picks the tape off the floor. When he stands up Jon is resolutely looking at his shoes - which is very rare for him. He’s usually quite stare-y. He looks a bit hot and bothered about something - collar open and jumper sleeves bunched up thickly around his elbows. 

‘I keep telling you to stop doing that,’ Martin teases him, wanting that eye-contact back and hoping it'll cheer him up. 

Jon, obviously, has a come back. ‘Can a man not go where he likes in his own archive?’ He seems to decide it’s safe to look up now.

‘Not if he’s sneaking,’ Martin insists, ‘And not if the archive is this creepy.’

_And not if I’m thinking about you._

Jon slips his hands into his pockets. He fiddles with the lining sometimes, Martin has noticed. He’s looking at the tape.

’Is that..?’ He asks. 

‘Yeah.’

Martin doesn’t give it to him. His clutched hands either side of it are pinching slightly, but he isn’t ready to give it up. He’d just started talking and talking and talking...

‘You’re not really going to listen to them, are you?’ He asks, embarrassed that he’s asking.

In a dream situation Jon would say _‘oh, probably not, just chuck in the box and maybe I’ll get round to it. Thank you so much.’_

But he says ‘of course I am,’ completely nonplussed. ‘That’s my job. I listen to all of them. Or I just,’ he frowns, ‘sometimes I sort of know what’s going to be on it before I start but, I still listen to them.’

‘Oh.’

Well that’s strange. And worrying. Mostly worrying that it’s probably one of those powers Elias is so keen on Jon developing, which Martin reckons is definitely not a good thing. Also worrying that he might know what’s on this one just by looking at it.

Martin closes his fists around the tape, shielding the plastic, holding it to his chest. 

Jon is doing that weird thing he does with his eyebrows when he’s trying to be nice. His shoulders hike up as he pushes his hands deeper into his pockets.

‘You don’t want me to hear it?’ He asks, and he schools his voice into something softer. ‘That’s fine, that’s okay. Um.’

It isn’t though, Martin knows. He counts in his head the seconds before Jon starts backtracking. Two steps forward, two steps back.

‘Only I think it’s important,’ Jon backtracks, clearing his throat. ‘To have them all on record. I thought you said it was a good idea.’

‘I did. But I’m not sure now.’ Martin turns the tape over in his hands and the plastic clacks. ‘I’m just really... worried.’

_Ugh_. There that is again. Bloody worried - that’s all he ever is, even after he’s decided not to be. He glares up at the ceiling, rolling his eyes at himself.

’I know that’s stupid.’

‘No... no,’ Jon says. Not entirely dismissively.

He sighs like Martin’s talking nonsense, like he doesn’t want to hear it. But he’s reaching for something else. It’s not a wire-bristled brushing but a soft one. A matter-of-fact sort of comforting.

’I’d say that’s sensible, really.’

‘I’m not gonna back out, or anything,’ Martin makes sure to let him know, wanting to at least convince _him_ off it.

He won’t just be the scared one. Not in Jon’s head at least.

‘I’m going to do it.’ He says firmly, setting his jaw. ‘I want to do it.’

He’s actually sounding quite determined. It would surprise a lot of people, this voice. It sort of surprises him.

And Jon is looking is looking at him again, not at the floor. Looking with... something like surprise? His eyes are wider than normal. Heavy.

It makes Martin falter. ‘Just... you know,’ he mumbles, ’Not looking forward to it.’

‘I’m scared too,’ Jon says, quietly. So quietly it might even be kind and Martin immediately feels awful.

‘I’m not scared for _me_ ,’ he says quickly, apologetically. How selfish would that be? When all he’s facing is their boss and his own head. ‘Not even - not really. I just worry about you.’

Jon blinks. His head cocks slightly to one side and he frowns as if that’s really something to think about. Martin coughs, feeling very red suddenly.

‘The rest of you,’ he clarifies. He looks down at the floor. 'You lot. You guys.’

‘Right.’

There is a quiet and Martin scuffs his trainers.

He’d made the same mistake on the tape. Let the same priorities slip through a crack. Is it obvious? He wonders. It seems to be to everyone else. Jon never talks about these things. He seems completely oblivious to the the gossip forming around the kettle that Martin is hyperaware of. But he’s not an idiot. He actually _has_ a degree. He went to Oxford - he can put two and two together.

Surely...

So is it an act? Sparing them the conversation. The rejection. 

God, it would have been so much easier if Martin had just cared about him the right way, without the rest. Just been a good friend and wanted everyone safe the same. If he’d not gone and fancied his boss to the point of apocalypse.

His pulse is a tiny tin hammer against his wrist. His eyes steal away from the floor for a second, and Jon is still looking, stood like a statue. Something magnetic holds him to the floor. Martin sighs, knowing of course what it is.

He still wants the tape.

When will he listen to it, Martin wonders. Tonight? Will he leave the party, go back to the basement and listen to them all instead of drinking or dancing at the grand farewell?

Or tomorrow? Before they drive off in the van Elias hired for them. In the B&B, under some chintzy duvet on the last night of the world?

Martin turns the tape over and over, imagining Jon listening to his voice, all creaky through the little speaker on the cassette player. Listening to Martin put emphasis on his name.

_God and he did that stupid impression._

He shuffles from foot to foot and eyes the old shoebox.

There’s a few other tapes in there already, which means it’ll only be weird if Martin doesn’t put his in.

Then again he still thinks it’s weird how much Jon wants them to record things. What difference does it make to stopping the ritual? It’s not pure paranoia anymore, he doesn’t think, but the _need_ worries him. He’s already tried before to stop Jon smoking - he should probably be trying to stop this too. There’s definitely _something_ unsettling about the recorders, and all this spooky stuff should really be top priority.

And the gossip. And he’s picturing Jon’s face as he listens to it and is so so tempted to run.

But Jon wants the tape.

So Martin will give it to him.

There’s not really anything else to it.

Martin takes the shoe box, puts his tape in it, and pushes it into Jon’s chest quickly, before he can change his mind.

‘There,’ he says, with his voice overly chipper and business as usual. ’Reckon that’s everyone’s.’

He dusts his hands of it.

Jon looks briefly into the box, his eyes darting over the tapes, but his eyes are back up in a second.

He always looks so intently, and without his glasses on, with that barrier removed, he squints more and is only harder to decipher. He looks like he is thinking something over that he’s been thinking about for a long time, and might be nearing a conclusion, only the conclusion is the hardest part to wrap his head around.

‘Thank you,’ he mumbles.

He always says it like that - never says ‘thanks’ or ‘cheers’, but the whole thing. _‘_ Thank you’ with the ‘ _you’_ attached. God, Martin is going to miss him saying it.

_No, no. You’ll hear it again. He’s coming back._

‘Course,’ Martin assures him. Assures himself.

_He will come back._

He tries to inject that surety into himself - that angryand determined, proud and just a bit petulant defiance that he feels when Elias ums and ahs about whether Jon’s powers will be enough to See when the ritual begins. ‘I’m sure they will,’ he’s said in his boss’ face, not loudly, not when the tape’s on, but still with his whole chest.

That sureness is reactionary. In it he feels like his fist is round a flagpole, and it comes with a whole new angle where he’s looking _up_ at Jon, and his gaze is part of the pillar holding Jon up there.

It isn’t a wholly real sureness. He knows that. The image isn’t real either.

Looking at Jon now he doesn’t have that sureness. Jon looks very small, hovering with the shoebox against his hip. His hand is red and tight against it. He looks like a real, harmless clown could push him right over, let alone a demonic one.

_He really might not come back._

Martin can’t look at him and do nothing. His hands, empty without the shoebox, are heavy with aching.

He moves, again, before he can decide to stop himself, and pulls Jon into him.

His arms close on top of each other round Jon’s shoulders. He closes them tighter and Jon makes a rough little noise of surprise. But he doesn’t go anywhere.

He isn’t as angular as he looks, Martin thinks. He’s lost weight and gained only part of it back and lost it again, but he doesn’t feel like a sharp bag of bones. Or at least he doesn’t feel as fragile as he looks when Martin’s worrying about him - he feels solid. There is warmth coming off him and Martin can smell his soap, feel his lungs moving up and down.

The few inches between them has never mattered in practice, only in Martin’s imagination, but now they’re this close the difference is magnified. It’s not a perfectly neat difference, he can’t set his chin on top of Jon’s head, and Jon couldn’t put his chin on Martin’s shoulder. But the way it is Jon’s forehead rests between Martin’s collar and his cheek in a way that isn’t entirely uncomfortable.

It feels like it could be good, if they practiced. It could be easy in another universe. If he turned his head he could kiss the space between Jon’s eyebrows. 

The shoebox is getting a bit crunched, the corners digging in.

Jon’s hand, the one that isn’t holding the box, is squashed between them awkwardly. Then it slides around, ghosts over Martin’s side and comes to sit politely in the small of his back.

It’s sweet of him to try, and Martin’s face is warm as he smiles through damp eyes.

What was that song they used to sing in primary school? He’s got the whole world in his hands. He scoffs, an incredulous laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. Then sniffs.

Everything inside him is cracking and he holds Jon even tighter as he holds the pieces together.

He wants to do something selfish before he lets Jon go. But the world is ending so he really shouldn’t. It would be insensitive. Jon has enough on his mind and Martin should be focusing on the plan and the timing just isn’t right and he shouldn’t want to do things that aren’t right. 

But the world is ending. And he did say he wanted to be more brave. So he kisses Jon on the cheek.

Hot and quick and sweet. Not lingering. Ducking out as quick as he ducked in.

The noise of it is nothing fake, nothing exaggerated. Just a quiet whisper of air between his lips, the click of his tongue off the back of his teeth, a small intake of breath. Embarrassingly authentic.

He lets Jon go.

‘Be careful,’ he says to the ground as they move apart. His mouth burns like he’s rubbed it with ginger. ’Won’t you? Be safe.’

He can feel Jon staring at him. When he speaks his voice is sort of croaky. ‘You too.’

_This was mistake._

‘Well I’ll see you... soon? I guess.’

Jon half laughs, rueful and ironic. ’I certainly hope so.’

He stops laughing. It stops them both for a second.

When he starts again he stammers slightly. It’s so adorable when he does that. Even when he’s taking something nice back.

’I-I-I’ll see you when I see you. I suppose.’

Martin thinks he might cry. Even after all the hard parts are over. After he said, he _said_ he wouldn’t. He blinks and rubs the back of his neck. He needs to leave. This whole not being scared and being in control thing is a good idea in theory and probably going to be a good idea down the line, but it’s not right now.

Right now it’s just really really hard.

But he smiles. Small, with his mouth closed so it doesn’t shake.

’See you when I see you,’ he agrees.

It’s all they can promise.

Martin stands for one more second, looking his maybe last look. Then he turns and goes.

He exhales as he walks, a very long and shaky breath.

Downstairs a faint cymbal crashes and a boyband lead is crooning. It sounds like the one from McFly he used to fancy in school. Hearing it now, in time to his steps as he practically pegs it down the corridor, is very dissonant. It was so low stakes back then, to love someone.

Oh. Love.

His trainers squeak on the floor as he nearly stops.

_I love him._

He does very nearly cry.

But he doesn’t look back. Because he isn’t selfish. Because he’s decided to do the brave thing.

Back in the office he runs into Tim. It’s fair, he supposes, they are supposed to share the office. He tries to hide his red eyes - Tim has more to worry about and more to wrestle with than badly timed love. But Tim catches him as he always does. He comes out of the shadows and looks exasperatedly, fondly concerned.

‘I’m okay,’ Martin tells him, because he won’t want to hear about Jon and he won’t have the patience to dish out platitudes.

Tim puts down the box he’s holding and comes over. He sighs and pulls Martin into a much more well practiced hug.

He doesn’t have any wise cracks or wise words, just holds the hug for a few long seconds and says nothing if Martin’s fingers curl into the fabric of his shirt.

When he lets go he smiles and pulls a cassette out of his back pocket.

‘Do you want to go and give it to him or shall I?’ He asks, and although there is still teasing, still _Tim,_ in his voice, he looks more open and genuine than he has since he gave his last statement.

‘Can you do it?’ Martin says, his voice small and grateful.

He’s not sure he can bare to see Jon again now.

‘Fine,’ Tim says, reading his mind. ’Only for you.’

‘If-’ Martin starts as Tim opens the door. ‘If he says anything will you tell him I’m okay? I know he won’t but. If he does. I’m okay.’

Tim shakes his head, smiling. ‘When did I become the messenger boy? Course I will.’

He winks as he leaves the office for the last time.

‘Don’t go telling the others I’m soft.’

In the basement Tim presses the tape into Jon’s hand andJon asks ‘is Martin..?’

Tim actually wrings his hands. ‘Really, boss? You have the worst timing in the world.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhh !! i made myself sad about many things............ hope u all enjoyed xx and dw next chapter wont be up this quick wuiefbiw


	6. Off-License

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so..... here i am again...... long time no see....... anyway!! pine time 
> 
> (off-licence = liquor store/bodega i guess)

Does Martin even like red wine? 

The dodgy fridge hums loudly as Jon tries to remember. 

Does he? Or did he just always bring that because he was being nice? That sounds like something he would do - remember something like that and selflessly pick red on Jon’s behalf. Trust Jon not to know what he’d actually drink for  _ himself _ . 

The tinny sound of football commentary comes clearly through earphones. The man at the counter is hunched over his phone, ignoring Jon struggling in front of his fridge. 

Jon shuffles down the aisle and scrutinises the overpriced single cans. He’s definitely seen Martin drinking cider, but that’s not classy is it? No, he should get something nice. Something expensive. Or is that too much?  _ Showing up _ is already going to be too much, he knows it is. Told Daisy as much when she’d encouraged him. 

Don’t want to push it. 

He pulls a hand down the whole length of his face and seriously considers trying to  _ know _ . But that wouldn’t be a nice gesture would it? That would be cheating. 

And he doesn’t want to pass out on the floor of a grimy off-licence. 

Someone scores - he hears the crackly cheering from the counter. Jon knows it is Everton-two, Tottenham-one;  _ that _ knowledge apparently can drop easily into his head, but  _ somehow  _ he still doesn’t know what Martin likes to drink. Bloody useless, beholding is. 

Rubbish advice from Daisy, too -  _ ‘get a drink in him and maybe he’ll be more willing to break whatever creepy pact he’s got with Lukas.’  _

Fine. He’ll just get the wine. It’s something they’ve shared, maybe that counts for something. And if Martin doesn’t want it at least he can drink it on his own in his office and maybe sleep a few hours together. 

He reads the labels and the extortionate price stickers and wishes he was much better at all of this. It had taken him months to even remember what Georgie used to order, and the uni bar had only ever had three taps. Now the stakes are so much higher and he’s only gotten worse. 

He settles on a bottle, turns it over in his hands. And still he thinks twice about it. Is merlot right? 

_ Christ _ . 

Having feelings is terrible and humiliating. As soon as this is over he’s going straight out for a cig. Maybe before. Martin always used to twitch when he came back in with smoke clinging to his clothes. Maybe that would get a reaction. Maybe he misses the fussing. 

Right. Anyway. wine. It’s just wine. Decision made. 

He’s about to head to the counter - then he sees. Cash only.

Fuck’s sake. 

In his back pocket - car, lighter, and a dogeared fiver. 

Right. £4.99 bottle it is. He peels off the sticker as he wordlessly hands the note to the bored cashier. Fantastic gesture. 

The office door is closed, obviously. It’s supposed to be a secret. It’s supposed to be after work hours. Jon doesn’t knock. It’ll be ignored. Instead he stands before it just long enough that Martin will have a chance to see his silhouette through the frosted glass. He doesn’t want to make him jump. 

He breathes, starts to count to five, tightens his sweaty grip on the neck of the bottle. 

Fine. Okay. 

He pushes the door open with his shoulder. 

Martin doesn’t jump when he comes in. He doesn’t even look up until the door swings itself closed and the latch clicks. 

‘Oh. Hello, Jon.’ 

He’s stood in the corner by a filing cabinet, rifling through something. He doesn’t take up so much space anymore, even though his posture’s better than it used to be. His cheeks don’t have the same sort of speckled flush. 

It would make sense to say ‘ _ hello _ ’ back. But the sight of him (God, just the rare sight of him, how pathetic is that?) makes Jon forget and all he manages to say is ‘Martin.’ 

‘Yeah?’ Martin looks up at him then, and his eyes under the frown are harder, steelier than they used to be. 

He picks a file from the box and wanders back to the desk. When Jon still says nothing he opens it up and starts tapping away at his laptop. 

He types quite fast now. He used to be somewhat clunky, shy of the noise. Now he types like a bank teller crunching numbers, nails clacking and confident. 

He’s zoned completely into it, or out of the room, out of Jon standing there, back still against the door. His eyes are glassed over slightly, brows furrowed in a dull concentration, and when Jon tries again (not anything better, cleverer, just another weak ‘Martin-’) he sounds bemused; looking over his laptop as he asks ‘did you need something?’

‘No, I. Uh.’ Jon blinks, swallows. He’s going to have to get better at this. ‘There’s a party downstairs,’ he finishes lamely. 

‘Okay,’ Martin says, shrugs, looks away. He keeps typing like it makes no difference in the world to him. 

There’s a quiet, a hopeless quiet, and if Jon were nicer he might take it as the no it clearly is. 

Then he sees the spooling tape recorder sat on the desk and the sight gives him a kick. If it’s on it must be for something. 

Jon pushes his back off the door and walks forward, tries to stroll like the stakes are low. 

‘You know,’ he starts, huffing out a half laugh, wanting so much to make him smile, ‘you told me once that isolating was bad for you. Bit ironic, isn’t it?’ 

Martin doesn’t smile. ‘That was a long time ago,’ he says. 

‘Are you sure you don’t want to come down, just for one-‘

Martin sighs. He puts the lid of his laptop down and pulls a hand over his face. Does that sour, whining voice he does when this isn’t what should be happening. ‘Jon...’ 

‘Or we can stay here,’ Jon says quickly, cutting him off. He bustles forward, puts the bottle down on the desk, moves round to Martin’s side of it before this nervous energy can be curtailed. ‘I bought wine.’  _ Obviously you brought wine you idiot, he’s not blind. _ ‘No cups,’  _ (idiot)  _ ‘but... I can get some?’ 

The question hangs. Then -

‘Don’t do this.’

‘Do what? I’m just offering-’

‘I can’t,’ Martin tells him, and he looks away with an awkward finality. 

He’s always had flitting eyes. Always looked, looked away, looked back. Once Jon had noticed it, he’d surprised himself by quite liking it. If ‘like’ is the right word. It was a nice thing to pay attention to - tracking Martin’s eyes. He liked the feeling of looking up from a desk or a cafe table to find them on him and quickly moving away.

He liked the expressions Martin would make when they looked at the same time - a small smile or an eye roll or slight head tilt across the room. A private, understream conversation, undisturbed by words, that greeted, and checked, and shared.  _ ‘Hi’, ‘what?’, ’this is stupid isn’t it?’, ‘you okay?’.  _ Almost always followed by that slip to the floor.

It makes sense, Jon supposes, it’s fair. He’s always had an off-putting way of staring (Georgie’s words, spoken with honest fondness, but he’s known it about himself for longer and not loved it). And now it’s probably even harder to hold his gaze.  _ The Archivist’s gaze,  _ he thinks bitterly. 

The way Martin avoids his eye contact now is different. It’s not the same dance anymore, doesn’t trip the same peach-warm spill inside him. 

Martin’s eyes are still, not blushing or sparking with a joke, or even worrying. They look through Jon, or just next to him at the wall, as if there’s nothing else there to draw them. It’s disconcertingly blank. Somehow worse than seeing him worry. 

And there’s none of that breath catching quickness to it. 

They can’t do that anymore. Apparently.

‘But I...’ Jon sighs, looking down at him and wanting so much to see again what his face looks like looking up. ’I don’t understand. You haven’t- I don’t understand why.’ 

He hears the note of beholding in it, in his curiosity, desperation to know. He hates that. Hates too the crack of human in his neediness. Childish. 

Martin still isn’t saying anything, is opening his laptop back up and trying to get something done and Jon is a  _ burden _ . He knows knows  _ knows _ he’s a burden but selfishly he’s still in the room, still hanging on for an answer he won’t accept. 

Martin breathes, flexes his hands out over the keyboard. Warm hands, Jon knows, though they don’t look it now. 

‘I’ve already told you I can’t-’ he starts, voice calm, casual, restrained. 

And Jon knows he has but he can’t hear it again and he’s already talking before he can take the tape off. 

‘I know, but I want you to be there. I- I don’t know anyone else there, Martin.’ 

It’s not really, strictly true. Daisy, he hopes at least, will be waiting for him in his office, the sleeves of his jumper that once was Georgie’s jumper pulled down over her hands. It’s been a lot less lonely with her. They’re sort of friends now. Or, sort of bonded deeply for life and just starting to learn how to be friends. 

But she won’t go to the party. At the party he doesn’t know anyone, he really doesn’t. 

In the old days of dark function rooms, if he’d have been with anyone he’d have been with Tim. He’d have been hovering, half distant, half glued to him in a way Tim had called ‘weird’ but not been cross with. Not then.

Before that, it would have been Georgie he’d have stuck to in a crowd of rowdy strangers. And she’d have taken him to the bar with her - so she’d have a bodyguard, she’d said, but really it’d be so he wouldn’t have to save their seats alone in the corner. 

But Tim hadn’t enjoyed his aloof clinging much after they’d moved department and not at all after the worms and the stalking. And Georgie isn’t talking to him. Daisy sometimes holds one of his fingers at a time, but they don’t go to packed places. 

He doesn’t know whose party it even is, and he’s not sure any of the archives staff would. Basira doesn’t go in for all of that, Melanie won’t talk to him even if she would go. 

Martin doesn’t buy the self-pity. It’s always the people who understand where it comes from, have been there too, who won’t buy it. 

‘So get to know them,’ he cuts, ‘if you don’t want to be lonely. I can’t be the only person you know.’

‘You-’

‘Don’t you have  _ Daisy _ now?’

He puts a mean emphasis on her name. 

Ah. Bringing up other people was a bad idea then. Bad timing. Bad planning. Bad execution. Of course it is. Rash. 

Jon does have Daisy now but selfishly that’s not who he wants. He should be contented, be happy even, to have a friend who doesn’t think he’s evil and doesn’t want him dead. And when this is all over he wants to introduce them properly and get a round in and try and find common ground in their senses of humour and have them be friends and like each other as much as he likes them. 

But he isn’t contended. Not right now. He doesn’t ache to hold her the same way, doesn’t crawl with wanting.

‘You’re the only person I want there, Martin,’ he says, honest and agitated. The emphasis he wants to put on it is soft, and in a better man’s mouth might be romantic but it’s far too reactionary, irksome even. ‘I want  _ you _ to be there. With me. I’d really...’ 

He stops, eyes crossing the now even smaller gap between them, roving over soft hair and eyebrows, the cheeks and chin that once pressed into the top of his head and anchored him in pressing warmth. He moves instinctively again, tries to get back into Martin’s eye-line.

‘I mean,’ he mumbles, quiet and suddenly autumn-cold and red, ‘remember last time...‘ 

He remembers it at least. His cheek still smarts sweetly at the memory. It had glowed against the car window, against the hotel pillow, and he had buried the stuttering warmth that spread from it under the quilts and promised to deal with it later. The whole thing had done little to calm his nerves, which he can only assume was the intention. It was always Martin’s intention. 

He wants to do the same thing now. The good intentions. The calming. The kissing too, really. Selfishly he wants to freckle and stipple Martin’s distant face with his mouth until he finally  _ finally _ looks at him again. Jon wants to stop it. Wants nothing more than to stop it, and he knows he isn’t half good enough and isn’t a hero but he wants to save him. 

The desperation must be radiating off of him. Martin closes his eyes as if against a headache. 

‘Jon...’ he says in that same lamenting voice, ‘please don't say this now...’ When he opens his eyes and looks down his waterline is red. ‘Why?’ He asks, scoffs and strains to keep his voice from cracking. ‘Why would you say this now? 

‘I know it’s too little too late -’ Jon scrambles, fumbling with his own hands and then finding Martin’s and fumbling with them as well. Too desperate, too shaky to really realise the full weight of what he’s holding. He barrels on, not planning the end of the sentence, just knowing that he means it. ’I know I should have... earlier, but I really, I really-’

Martin clamps his fingers and holds them still. ‘ _ Please,’  _ he says. ‘Don’t.’ 

There is a long, long pause. 

Jon stares up at their hands. In the silence he frees his thumb and just glances it over Martin’s white knuckles. 

‘Is there no way-’ 

‘You know I can’t, and you know I can’t talk about why. Please. Don’t make me keep telling you ‘no’.’ 

It is only as Martin says ‘ _ no _ ’ and he sinks back onto his feet, sitting on the soles of his shoes, that Jon registers the fact he’s on his knees. 

The floor is hard against them. Begging. Pathetically. All at once he hates himself consciously. He has never hated himself more than he does in this moment - kneeling on the floor, a blocked and filthy drain on this poor man, who is trying to be strong, who used to be so generous and patient and wide eyed. 

He lets go of Martin’s hand.

‘I’ve missed my chance,’ he says, looking at his own empty palms - scarred, wretched and desperate. Selfishly, he needs to ask: ‘haven’t I?’ 

Immediately he regrets it - can see Martin struggling to answer. His eyes are pink and focused straight ahead. He is quiet for a long time before he inhales and it shudders through his teeth. 

‘I wish...’ He starts, and he sounds as if he cannot bring himself to finish it. ‘I wish you...’ 

It is unbearable, suddenly, and the weight of selfishness drops like a tonne of bricks, so Jon stops him. He never wanted to make it a struggle. 

‘It’s alright,’ he says, in his best stiff, comforting voice. He stands up off the floor, knees cracking. ‘I won’t make you tell me again.’

He turns and walks away, making a conscious effort to pick his heavy feet up, to not drag them. He holds the door a moment and holds his tongue, trying not to stammer through a polite goodbye. 

‘Well, I’ll be downstairs if you want me. I-i-if you need anything,’ he corrects himself quickly. ‘From me. I mean.’

Martin looks at the wall above Jon’s head like he’s looking through it. His eyes are wet enough to look glassy, washed out. But he isn’t crying. His brow furrows like he’s thinking very hard but his pupils don’t move from the empty wall. Jon waits.

When he does speak, his voice is flat and empty. It could be a realisation or a relief or an insult - but it is nothing. He says:

‘I don’t think I do anymore.’ 

That full stop sounds like the bottom of a heavy glass smacking on bone. 

‘Right,’ Jon manages. He doesn’t know what else to say. It is hard to move his mouth. It feels like he’s taken a punch. ‘Well I’ll, um. I’ll be downstairs anyway.’ 

Then he goes. 

The door closes and Martin keeps looking at the wall for a while, blinking the fog and salty dampness from his eyes. 

It’s true, he supposes, he doesn’t need anything from Jon. Not anymore. He doesn’t need reassurance or attention. His heart doesn’t stammer like a nervous tea light anymore. It knows what it is made of and does what it has to. The embers smoke and their glow is hidden in the fog. 

Six months is a long time and now the distance has gone from a cruel necessity to a habit. It is easier to draw a line under it, and let the weight push and push on that line than it would be to let it all come down on top of him. Again. 

All the same he wonders how much he meant it. How much of him  _ had _ to say it just to get him to go, to make it all end before it was too much, and how much of him wanted to. Needed to, even. For his  _ patron _ .

That thought, half sarcastic as it is, tastes awful and he does his best to swallow it. The plan is to play along, and he’ll see the plan through. But he’s still hoping to avoid the lonely clouds crowding his mouth like cotton balls. 

The taste isn’t only resentment and he looks around for a mug. It’s only then he notices that Jon’s left the wine. 

He doesn’t quite smile. His mouth is out of practice with the shape. And it’s still annoying and unbearable to be on the receiving end of the cloying that he used to be the expert in. He’s never been good at taking it, even before all of this. But now his walls are up even higher, as they have to be, and he doesn’t need this. 

Oh. Well. It is true, then. He doesn’t need it the same. 

It would be nice. The timing kills. 

Yeah, it’s easier not to need him. 

At least not yet. If he does he’ll call. When he does.  _ When  _ Martin reminds himself, looking at the new box of tapes on the side. When he has something concrete.  He reaches over and turns the tape recorder off. There. Properly alone now. No one to hear him crack open the bottle and swig straight from it. 

It tastes...  _ terrible _ . He coughs, splutters. Then cracks a tiny smile. Ridiculous man. 

Martin shakes his head. The thought might have been dangerous before, maybe is still, a little bit. Could set the tape off again and earn him another patronising visit. 

But actually (he takes another awful sip) the sliver of fondness is sort of helpful now. How can you be truly lonely if you don’t know what you’re missing? 

Who, rather. Who and their crappy three quid red wine. 


	7. Wine in Whisky Glasses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well. been a while. i wont go on here we all know what you're here for. its finally happening. 
> 
> here's a playlist i made for this chapter if you like to listen and read: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6nd0EZ350EpYz4xcfA1eCD?si=rBPmvk9QQlSCNv9IP1JWAA
> 
> on to the snogging ->

‘Shall we have a drink tonight?’ Martin asks one strawberry evening.

The windows are all shut against the fresh evening chill but the smell of the heather is floating in anyway, and it’s light enough that he could still make it down the village. Peachy orange light is leaking through the kitchen window, making the ends of Jon’s hair look tawny and playing rainbows in the soap suds.

It’s a Thursday, their second normal Thursday up here, in what’s fast become thought of as ‘home’.

At first it had been ‘the safehouse’. On the drive up it had been the goal, the one light in the distance. Something they could focus on to stop them nodding off as they were lullaby’ed by reams and reams of yellow-grey motorway and the steady pulse of chevrons. _‘Safe’:_ something to rely on. A susserated word murmured between them over the hum of the engine; over the too bright self-checkout screens at the services; the tasteless food forced down under the guarding, caring gaze of the other. ‘The safe-house’ Jon had kept calling it, two words, like a promise, one hand inconveniently, stubbornly in Martin’s as he’d fished for change with the other.

Then it was just ‘the house’ when they’d stumbled over the threshold. Eyes blurry from the drive, blinking and groaning as Jon put the lights on and quickly apologised for not giving warning.

Seeing an old Aga, a fireplace, a kettle - it couldn’t be anything other than a house. It could still be a kill room, of course, said a prickle in the back of Martin’s mind, one that he was exhausted enough to find deliriously entertaining. But as he’d blinked and adjusted to the light - _so_ much light in the world he was still getting used to again - the living room and little kitchenette and rickety staircase were suddenly every relaxing, comforting thing in the world. It was a house after all. He could sleep here.

Everything had sagged out of his shoulders and he’d stumbled slightly as he crossed the room without the energy to pick his feet up. Jon had watched him carefully as he followed him up the stairs, eyes steadying on his back like a hovering hand.

It was a house - it had a bedroom. With paisley curtains and an old lamp and one bed.

The urge to collapse had been so so heavy but the question one bed posed had stalled it, held it up for a moment.

They’d shared it, obviously. In the end. After the obligatory polite debate. Martin had sworn he could sleep downstairs, but Jon wouldn’t hear of it.

‘It’s a double, Martin,’ he’d said as if that solved everything, helping them both out of their rucksacks.

‘It’s barely a double - I’ll take up the whole thing.’

‘Well I starfish anyway, so I suppose that makes two us.’

‘You drove all this way. Let me take the sofa.’

‘No.’

Being forced into accepting comfort had made it okay to take it. And he _had_ been tired. _So_ tired. From having gone from a pawn to a player to fog and mist to substantial again, human again, barely. From having come back stale and empty and starved of any touch, to suddenly being clung to with shy desperation like a piece of pale driftwood.

It’s such a long way to Scotland. He’s never been further North than Blackpool before. His bones had ached from miles of road, from rattling round the the little bends up here in the Highlands.

He’d been tired and Jon had seen it. Had cornered him into allowing himself to accept the chance to stop holding himself up. Had helped him off with his wet-stained and sandy trainers, not fumbling as he pulled the tucked tattered laces out from under the still damp tongue and picked apart the double knot. It had all been a bit intimate, but Jon had tossed them, squelching, into the corner with a look of distaste that had actually got Martin to smile.

It had helped, the smile. Affection had creeped back, sleepy and mushy into his drained muscles. The reminder, safe now, soft now, that he loved this man. Trusted him with his shoe laces. He could trust this feeling. He felt it, properly again, didn’t just _think_ he ought to feel it. It was permissible now, but he’d slipped back into the habit as easily as into a warm bath.

 _I love you,_ he’d thought, so he’d needed to check again.

‘I don’t want to make you uncomfortable or anything-’ he’d started, thinking about all the gossip and the dreams.

But Jon had scoffed and stood up, toeing out of his own ruined shoes, and reminded him that ‘it won’t be the first time I’ve seen you in your underwear, Martin. I’m sure I won’t drop dead.’

And Martin had balked and coughed and flushed at the memory he’d long shoved down and forgotten. It was the most colour as he’d had in his face since he’d left for the panopticon. 

There might have been embarrassment, any other night. There might have been tension. What if they touched? What if he snored? Stole the duvet? Slept... wrong, somehow? The gap between their faces was nothing. What if he crossed it? He might have wanted to look anywhere but Jon. He might have wanted to look at nothing but Jon all night.

But he’d dropped off as soon as his head hit the pillow. Slept before he’d even warmed up.

It had been ‘the house’ as they’d padded downstairs very late in the morning, but had quickly become ‘Daisy’s’ as they’d rummaged through the cupboards and found teabags and clumpy sugar. It couldn’t be anything less than the personal ‘Daisy’s’ as they’d borrowed her soap for long needed showers, then bundled up in _her_ blankets, to peruse and judge _her_ limited collection of paperbacks and old DVDs.

A couple days later they’d also found a good few pistols, a disconcertingly long rifle, and a large collection of knives. The knives they’d thought about, and taken a couple upstairs for the bedside drawers. But they’d both agreed without much discussion that the guns should stay put. Their hands are too shaky for them. Martin’s not even been to an airport, he’d said, he hasn’t seen one in real life since that time Daisy nearly shot Elias.

He’d regretted the name as soon as he’d said it. It had made Jon make a face and look again at the box of weapons.

‘Sorry,’ He’d said, closing the lid on Daisy’s guns.

They’d been doing a very good job at ignoring it all, so far. Not ignoring like dancing around, but just... not going there. Enjoying the break from it. It’d only been a few days still.

Jon had just squeezed his hand and asked if he was hungry.

He’s been doing that a lot. Asking, checking. He’s been trying so hard. Been good, actually. He passes over mugs and does the washing up and puts his hand very carefully on Martin’s arm, on his shoulder, on his back, once on his knee. And now that the house, Daisy’s house, is like a home, what with all the soap and blankets and Richard Curtis films, it feels less urgent, less panicked.

At the beginning everything about his worried touch had said _stay, please stay_. Now it seems to say _I’m here._

It feels strange to be looked after and Martin isn’t used to it. The first couple of days he wasn’t sure he liked it yet, but then the lonely fading was still fading. And there’s the guilt. That’s deeper, harder to shake; he’s always felt bad being the centre of attention. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t sort of nice, in an embarrassing way that he shouldn’t need. Still nice.

He’s been trying too, to make it even.

Jon gets a bit misty when they uncover a radio and Martin doesn’t know exactly what it is he shared with Daisy on what sounds like BBC Four, but he holds the hand that isn’t fiddling with the dial.

He goes second in the shower so as not to steal the hot water. He’s made a silly number of teas. He does the shopping runs.

He hasn’t admitted it yet that he’s trying to make up for it. To make up for everything cruel that he’d said in pushing Jon away whilst he was trying. Make up for the fog that took a few days to slump off him, for the fact that all the way here he’d been shaking whenever Jon had asked him if he was alright.

Yeah, it’s been weirdly, awkwardly nice to be looked after. He’s adjusting to it slowly, letting it make him fond and quietly happy rather than exposed.

He wants to give something back.

Of course, he gets some chance in the night. In the night things are a bit different and Jon’s hair is damp with haggard, sleeping sweat against his worried, stroking hand.

But they haven’t talked about that yet. They haven’t talked a lot about anything important. Just the important stuff like - where have you been abroad? Here? Do you have a passport? Have you seen this film or read this book? What did you think about it? Do you want your toast put down again?

They are still are sharing the bed - the nightmares doing quite the opposite of scaring Martin off. They’re scary, yes, but he’s just relieved he can be there. He wouldn’t dream of being anywhere else.

He’s getting more and more used to their sharing, finds it normal quicker each day like running down a hill. They’re waking up closer, legs maybe a bit tangled, an arm thrown across to the other’s side. Getting used to being allowed to touch each other casually - why wouldn’t they be?

The touch so far has been slight, gentle, holding. Has all been in comfort under the covers, or casual over the stove. Their hands are good together, Martin has decided, and they’re better practiced now than they had been in the desperation of the fog. The hugs are good, are _so_ good and his cheek melts into Jon’s hair every time.

He doesn’t want _more_ like this isn’t sufficient. There’s just a part of his heart that’s hard to deny, the part that is starting to warm back into the habit of beating double-time when Jon smiles over at him, like is now, elbow-deep in the washing up.

It’s not that it’s missing, just that it’s so close and it feels like the last step is the hardest for either of them to take when they’re still recovering, still comforting.

But Martin wants it. There’s the rest, still, in his imagination and in the smiles between them. Every time they’re close he’s contended and thrilled and safe but... he’s still him, now that the grey shroud is fading. There’s still the part of his brain that stubbornly, after everything, and, now, _because_ of everything, wants to kiss him.

After all, he’s wanted to since that first holiday party. It isn’t going anywhere.

Now on their second Thursday at home, that part of his brain that’s finally seen Jon in pyjamas, smelt his toothpaste, curled up with him on the sofa, is begging, chanting desperately ‘ _kiss him kiss him kiss him’_ every time they’re close.

 _If you leave it too long,_ it says, _you’ll lose the moment._ (The moment being the whole life saving thing, the whole running away to Scotland thing.) _If you leave it you’ll get complacent again._ (Complacency in wanting being a state he’s well practiced in and has always tended to default to.)

Martin knows that’s doubt talking, and he doubts there’s a time limit on this. For once it doesn’t feel like there is. But he likes that feeling of free running down a steep meadow and wants to roll with it to the bottom. And he rather wants to do it first and make it special.

It seems like neither of them can do it without an occasion. And maybe a glass of wine or two couldn’t hurt. One extra bit of courage and he could do it. Maybe he can do it.

So Martin asks Jon if he wants to drink tonight.

‘Might be nice,’ he says, ‘with dinner.’

(He says ‘dinner’ still, even though they aren’t down South anymore. It makes Jon’s nose crinkle when he says ‘tea’, which is very cute, but he supposes is fair enough considering how often he asks about _actual_ tea.)

‘I could go down to the village?’ He suggests, ‘pick something up?’

It takes the tone very much of an _‘oh it’s fine’_ , of an _‘I don’t mind’_. A smiling one. It really is fine, better than fine. Sometimes you really don’t mind when you say you don’t. He really doesn’t mind walking out into the lavender sky bundled up in one of Daisy’s scarves that they’ve been sharing. He likes doing nice things. 

But it’s not entirely selfless. No, he doesn’t want to admit it without the help of the alcohol, but he does want something. Something glowing pink and excited in the warm nook where he’s shoved his Jon thoughts for a long time.

‘We could just... be normal?’

Jon puts a mug down on the draining board and turns round. He’s smiling.

‘Yeah,’ he says, mulling it over in his mouth, ‘yeah, let’s be normal.’

He pulls the plug and puts the last of the soapy cutlery on the side. Another responsibility down, another little weight lifted so they don’t have to think about it later. It speaks to Martin as well as any poem. More, probably.

‘I’ll go down the shops,’ Jon says, drying his hands.

‘No,’ Martin tells him happily, taking the tea towel off him and hanging it up neatly. ‘I will.’

Maybe one day soon he’ll be able to say it with a kiss.

Later, when the sun’s gone down, Jon wrestles with the cork as Martin flicks through a small pile of Daisy’s records. Jury’s still out on whether someone’s actually died here, but the fact there’s a vinyl player makes Martin suspect it’s function is cosier than that. He hopes at least that Daisy never played music over her murders. For some reason the idea is hilarious to him.

When he finds the soundtrack to _Casablanca_ nestled amongst the classics he smiles, shakes his head. He has something in common with her then - an old soul, and a romantic streak to boot. There’s every strange, alien possibility that she’s been in the same situation as he finds himself in now - wondering if it’s too much, too on the nose. The bed is big enough for two people after all. She might have shared it too.

He decides he will play it. Jon can’t _actually_ read his mind, after all, and maybe too much is just enough. Or maybe Jon’s never seen it and he’s overthinking it again.

He puts it on, sets the needle down and barely jumps when the cork pops behind him.

He’s still fiddling with the volume as Jon shuffles over to him in his odd fisherman socks. (It’s an occasion, sure, but just one for them, so they’re in comfies - jumpers, cardigans, joggers. Halfway to pyjamas, the balance of comfortable and vulnerable.) He’s holding two thick glasses. Not wine glasses - they look like whisky ones. Real glass though, which is more than they’ve had before. 

There’s a satisfying ring when they clink them together. No toast, no words. But the echo of the glass vibrates as much as every molecule between them.

They take a cushion each on the sofa, leaving the crease between them like a little safety line. Or a starting line. When Jon crosses his legs his toes poke over it.

‘So,’ he says, and he doesn’t follow it with anything.

‘So.’ Martin agrees.

They both breathe half a laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.

They’ve had plenty of evenings. Surprising amounts of conversation. More than Martin had thought he’d ever be ready for when he’d broken away from the beach. But it seems they both know tonight is a bit different.

It’s not just the promise of alcohol. It’s the promise itself. It’s quite nice to have surety, to be on the same page. Definitely nice. But they haven’t had that a lot. They’re both a bit rusty.

‘We’re being normal,’ Jon says with amused skepticism.

‘Yup.’

‘I suppose it’s harder than it sounds.’

‘Yeah. Maybe if we don’t try so hard?’

Jon smiles at that, relaxes into the arm rest.

‘How was the lady at the shop?’ He asks, like he normally does when Martin’s popped down.

It is very easy to start telling him about her news, her jokes, her insisting he’ll need a bag. She doesn’t really understand his guilt at forgetting a canvas one, reassures him that the flimsy plastic ones _are_ free. She tries to ply him with tins and tuna, since it’s going to rain, she can feel it in her bones.

Jon says in fairness her bones must be right. Something quiet is pattering on the thatch. It is easy to keep talking.

There is something eager and shaking in the gap they’ve left on the sofa. A quiet confidence that spreads from the wine, down the throat, into hands and thighs, into the cushions. It grows with anticipation. There is a lovely inevitability in their shuffling closer together with every laugh, like watching the glow of the sun going down and knowing the best is yet to come.

At some point Martin takes off his glasses, not needing to see the distance when Jon’s face is a steady two feet in front of him. The kitchen, the wood, the lamplight is blurred and bokeh’ed - all of it background as Jon laughs and drinks and talks and laughs and drinks.

He has never seen _Casablanca,_ he says. The glow through his hair is so beautiful.

At some point Martin is leaning against the back rest of the sofa, his arm outstretched across the back of it, his whisky glass of wine the other side of Jon’s head, the base of it resting between his shoulder and neck.

At some point they are close to curled up, Martin’s head almost on Jon’s chest as Jon shows him old photos on his phone, Martin looking at him just as often as the screen.

After the bottle is gone Martin slides onto the floor, crawls over to put another log on the fire.

When he sits back on his heels, then back again against the sofa, Jon is next to him on the rug, holding the second bottle by the neck. He’s already opened it, can be sly and greedy and keen like that if he wants to be.

He takes a sip and coughs a smile when the air bubbles get him.

‘You need to slow down,’ Martin tells him through a laugh. 

‘Do not.’

‘I’m not going back down the shop for another, that’s your last one.’

‘Fair enough,’ Jon allows, and he offers the bottle with a generous grin.

Martin drinks more carefully than he did, eyebrows teasing. _‘That’s how it’s done.’_ The bottle comes away with a pop, the vacuum pulling up a wine-stained circular swelling on his bottom lip.

As he brings the bottle back down there’s a good few seconds where he’s sure he catches Jon looking at his mouth. He touches it, wipes the red away and resists the instinct to look away at the fraying rug.

He doesn’t do that so much anymore. He looks straight at things now.

He watches Jon lean over to grab the glasses, smiling as he takes the bottle gently and fills them with a tipsy splashing.

Jon shimmies round to sit in front of him, cross legged, one knee hovering above Martin’s foot, and pushes Martin his glass across the rug.

They look at each other through the speckled glass as they sip in an easy silence. Glasses come down and they keep looking, unfiltered. The record player croons away.

 _Here’s looking at you,_ Martin thinks.

He’s never understood the appeal of the line, thought it was overrated with its weird syntax. (And who calls the person they love _‘kid’_ like that?) Not that he doesn’t understand the romance of _looking;_ he is a poet after all, even if he’s not all that good. He’s always been looking at things, people from a distance. And he’s spent enough time looking at Jon - over papers, over mugs, over other people’s shoulders - to understand the swelling of violins.

But it didn’t seem anything worth raising glasses over or saluting like the silver screen made it seem. He never got the huge, overwhelming, _everything_ that is looking until he’d seen Jon’s desperate, drizzle-drenched face coming out of the fog and begging him to look back. 

He gets it, looking at Jon now - mouth dark mauve and trailing easily up at the corners, eyes bright with mirth and firelight, looking for all the world like he feels the same inevitable pull. This he could cheers to. He thinks every toast he might make for the rest of his life might be _‘here’s to looking at Jonathan Sims.’_

Christ, he’s a bit drunk actually.

The sappy winery of his waxing makes him giggle a bit to himself and Jon tilts his head in happy question.

Suddenly, a stones throw away from what he’s been day and night dreaming about on and off and mostly on again for years, it feels too close. Too good to be true. The reality is buzzing and excitement is so close to nerves. Want is so close to need and need is so very hot on the back of his neck.

His head sways with the rolling surety of it. It really is going to happen.

‘Okay?’ Jon’s voice is asking with a touch of amusement.

Martin shakes his head, huffing his own small laugh. ‘I don’t think I’ve drunk like this since that office party.’

‘Which one?’

‘Hah. Good question.’ He thinks for a moment, but thinking quickly turns to reminiscing in this kindly fireside glow, drink heavy and purple on his tongue.

Jon seems to follow his train of thought. ‘We’ve had a fair few haven’t we?’

‘On and off.’

‘Hmm,’ Jon agrees, eyebrows dropping slightly and one finger dragging around the rim of his glass.

‘You always pick red,’ Martin points out with a fondness in the fact that he knows, and Jon’s forehead loses it’s creases. The corners of his eyes get them instead.

‘You noticed,’ he says, with shy surprise and something maybe like pride.

‘Course I did,’ Martin smiles, with that touch of exasperation that adds an affectionate _‘silly’._

They clink their glasses again, enjoying the fun of the noise, but he doesn’t drink. He wants to remember all this - wants to taste it through the wine when it happens.

_Oh my God it’s going to happen._

Jon watches Martin put his glass down and follows suit with a groan of understanding. 

‘You don't like it do you?’ He says, shoulders slumping, ‘I should’ve got you something else.’

‘It’s not that I don’t like it-’

Jon knocks his head back as the knowing hits him.

‘It gives you a headache,’ he realises, ‘God, I should’ve-’

Martin shakes his head fiercely, overcome with stumbling affection for this ridiculous man, who’s thought more about what Martin _drinks_ than most people do about what he _says_. He puts his hand out and it lands on Jon’s knee.

‘I like it,’ he insists seriously. Then he smiles. ‘It makes your teeth pink.’

He points, his finger unsteady, brushing Jon’s mouth with his nail. The touch makes him wobble, and he catches himself with his hand on Jon’s cheek, his thumb resting on a scar. He breathes. Slowly. Doesn’t dare move his thumb.

But Jon leans into his hand and sighs.

‘I thought it all the way to Yarmouth,’ he says, ‘when you kissed me there.’

Martin’s mouth is dry and open. He isn’t breathing. Just staring. At Jon, contended in his hand. At his cheek, pink with memory under Martin’s thumb.

He still isn’t breathing.

Jon’s eyebrows crease together and the lovely weight of his cheek loses something as he half moves.

‘At the party,’ he frowns, ‘before...’

‘I remember,’ Martin croaks. He remembers it all the time. He breathes in then, shuddering, still consciously not moving his hand. ’I thought you didn’t...’

‘I did,’ Jon says quietly. Then even quieter he says ‘I do.’ 

His eyes flutter closed for a second and he sucks in a breath. A long one. Not shocked but understanding. The movement of the air, of his mouth, the temperature and texture of it - Martin can feel it all against the heel of his hand.

Jon sighs out again and it swells warm in the tiny gap between palm and cheek.

‘You didn’t know that?’ He asks.

Martin might have wondered, and later he will wonder, if he did, or if he’d just let himself think maybe. Maybe he did know and pushed it down with the rest.

But he answers truthfully when he shakes his head.

‘I’m sorry-’ Jon starts, and now is the time because Martin doesn’t want to do apologies now.

Not when they’re so close, not when for once the love isn’t painful but sweet and sweet alone. He’s not going to waste the occasion. 

He aims for Jon’s cheek - wanting to be romantic, to be poetic and finish what’s been started - to make it perfect. But Jon finds his mouth, catches it messily. And gasps like he didn’t think he’d make it. 

It’s not quite there and they’re both still with the shock of it for a second, mouths closed and not fit together perfectly. The hinge of Jon’s glasses is pushed into Martin’s cheek.

But it is perfect, if such a thing exists. Or it’s going to be.

Martin moves his hand, finally, pulls Jon in closer to him, _finally_ , tilts his head so their lips actually fit and he can feel that little bit of secret soft behind the chapped, wine-wet outside that’s pressing against him _finally, finally._

It tingles when they come apart with a soft click. It buzzes, pulling them quickly back again. Martin remembers to breathe through his slightly squashed nose, warm in the space between Jon’s nose and pushed up lip. Jon forgets to - breathing heavily out through his mouth like he’s sighing. He always sighs, a _lot,_ but this is different because Martin catches it in his mouth for once and drinks it in, fingers curling.

He kisses slowly, trying to be gentle and savouring every second. But Jon kisses him back with that neediness that’s fast becoming a familiar part of his touch. It’s okay now, it’s allowed now. There’s no guilt in the back of Martin’s head, for once, so he holds on tighter and kisses back firm and keen and true. 

And solid. He feels solid again, here, properly. 

They only manage a few long, soft, heavy kisses before he’s slightly out of breath, dizzy from the long, slow pulls of air they’re sharing. He finds himself whispering nonsense into the tiny space between them.

‘I feel like I’m dreaming...’

‘Me too,’ is the shape Jon’s mouth is forming against his. He isn’t stammering for once, but his breathing shudders a little as he sinks closer. ‘Like I used to dream, before... but this is...’

The idea of being part of Jon’s dreams, his human dreams, makes Martin hum and pull back to look at him. He doesn’t want to cry so he gently takes Jon’s glasses off and folds them neatly on the floor.

‘I promise I’m real,’ he grins weakly, ‘promise I’m not a ghost.’

Jon doesn’t laugh but his exhale is a slow and happy one. He strokes a flat palm across Martin’s forehead, down the side of his face until it comes to cup his cheek like a precious thing, fingers cradling round his ear.

‘I can’t believe-’ he whispers.

‘I know,’ Martin says, tucking a piece of hair behind his ear and stroking the same path over as he repeats the words. ‘I know. I know, me neither.’

He wants to talk. There’s so much to talk through. But then they’re back together and there’s nothing, he doesn’t think, nothing that would break them apart in this moment. There are things he really wants to say, things he wants to hear. There’s poetry in this moment - infinite, sprawling verse unfurling, incohesive and illogical. But his Shakespeare is forgotten. It is all spilt together and lost in Jon’s mouth and he can think nothing but _kiss me kiss me kiss me..._

And Jon _can_ read his mind apparently, or read his mouth, because he does, _oh he does,_ properly, with more careless feeling than Martin thought he had. Martin cups the base of his skull, doesn’t mean to but curls his fingers into the tangles in Jon’s hair.

He sighs, they both sigh, and then his tongue is Jon’s mouth and it’s better than he’d tried not to think at every party because he feels all of it and _relief_. His eyes are wet. And they both taste like red wine.

They miss half as often as they get it right. Messy and sloppy like they’re back at school. They don’t aim, just feel for each other with no thought for where they should be, just where they want to be, and feel again until eventually it’s - _oh_

Jon is licking at his mouth now, his hands pawing at Martin’s collar, gripping, then unfurling to adjust and pulling up again like a cat at an old blanket.

He is practically in Martin’s lap which is even harder to believe, but there isn’t much intent to it. His chest is heavy and drooping; he’s more falling than climbing.

‘I’m gonna drop you-’ Martin murmurs with an awestruck huff of laughter against his chin, but Jon shakes his head, squeezes Martin’s cheeks in both his hands with an intensity that would be laughable if he didn’t mean it so much.

‘You won’t,’ he says firmly, all breath and belief, smudging muddled kisses across Martin’s cheeks, chin, cupid’s bow.

Martin catches his tousled mouth and kisses him back up, hands shifting back to his moving jaw. He feels wet under his thumb and his own eyes spill over as something soars shakily in his chest. 

He keeps pressing, finds something and what is hopefully a joyous sob chokes from the back of Jon’s throat. The noise breaks them apart and they stay, hot foreheads pressed together, eyes closed, for a slow dizzying moment before Martin looks up at him.

His lips hang parted, shining wet from Martin’s mouth. He hums and his lashes flutter against his pinkening cheeks. Pink as his wine-stained teeth.

Martin loves him. It is as relieving as sinking into a mattress. It makes him sleepy how much he loves him.

‘Shall we go to bed?’ He all but whispers.

He can see from the drowsy, kiss-giddy droop in Jon’s open smile and low eye lids, feel from the heaviness in his arms, that he just wants to sleep.

‘I just want to sleep,’ Martin clarifies. 

‘Yeah... Tonight,’ Jon says, voice kiss-hoarse and quiet with promise in a way that Martin doubts it would be it it wasn’t sunken in wine.

He choses to ignore the jolt of hot it, before he can get too much out of it, and puts it back for another day when they can talk about it first. He holds Jon up with two hands on his jaw, thumbs now bravely stroking over both his cheekbones.

‘Tonight,’ he repeats like a promise.

They stay on the floor by the fire for a bit, watching the embers crawl down to a sensible level with unfocused eyes. Jon’s head is curled into Martin’s neck, Martin’s hand still going over his cheek, then into his hair.

Eventually the fire stops spitting and Martin thinks Jon might have fallen asleep on his chest. The idea of it makes him swell and glow hot as the singing, dying coals. Whatever chemical makes this sleepy kind of love is seeping into every inch of him. Relief is seeping into every inch of him. His eyes, still salty dry from before, well up again.

He drops a wet kiss into Jon’s parting and gets a happy little hum.

‘Still awake?’

‘Hmm.’

Eventually the yellow in the fireplace turns to red and then to mostly black. Martin gently pushes Jon standing and Jon gives him his good hand to pull him up in turn. He doesn’t let go as they sway up the staircase.

They stagger the bed without stopping at the bathroom or the pile thats serving as a wardrobe. It’s fine, they can sleep in trackies tucked into socks. Jon is almost out as soon as he hits the pillow. Almost. He curls his free arm tight into the duvet, legs starfishes out, face pink against the cotton.

He will have a headache in the morning, Martin knows, and of course _he_ will too, always does. But the thought of tomorrow brings him nothing but flooding sleepy joy. He is tired. He is still tipsy. He is in love.

The bed looks cold in the nice way that only makes bodies warmer.

Jon’s arm goes taught as Martin tries to go back for a glass of water, hand holding firm and snagging him back like elastic. Martin chuckles and lets himself be tugged to the mattress, wriggles down and cuddles in under the quilts with a sigh.

He could sleep forever here. The wood creaks and the sheets rustle. He isn’t worried here. His fingers are still in Jon’s hand like a safety blanket.

His eyes aren’t completely dry but he’s almost asleep when Jon says something. Murmurs, drink wearing off, sleep wearing in.

‘What?’

‘I said that wasn’t very ‘normal’.’

Martin can hear him smiling. He smiles back.

‘No, it wasn’t.’

If Jon says anything after that he doesn’t hear it. He slumps into slumber still holding his hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well !! finally !! been building to this one for a while so pls let me know what u think uwu :))
> 
> and yes, there will be one more chapter. they gotta wake up and talk it out and be in love some more


	8. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> been a while but i present u 5k of fluff

The highland sun is beautiful and clear and far, far too bright in the morning. Jon barely looks at it for a second through crusted sleep before screwing his eyes up against it. 

‘Christ, my head.’

It isn’t that bad really, just a dull ache. He’s worse for feeling sorry for himself than actual migraines when it comes to hangovers. But it has been a while. And that wine really was full of sugar. 

He hears a breathy laugh next to him, or rather feels it against his cheek. 

‘Morning.’ 

Martin’s voice is soft and close, like it is every morning, but he sounds relaxed and easy, which he hasn’t been every morning, what with them being holed up in a safe-house and letting go of fear gradually. He doesn’t sound hungover at all. 

Jon gingerly opens his eyes and blinks past the light, forcing them to adjust so he can turn on his side. He looks at Martin, smiling at him, cheeks pink against the pillow, sweeter than the wine. 

‘Morning,’ he says back, voice pitched and croaky. He’s still not used to it. Waking up like this and getting to look. Waking up warm. 

‘It’s the tannins,’ Martin tells his pained frown with faint amusement. 

Jon looks down, reddening, smacks his tongue. ‘Do you have any water? My mouth tastes...’ 

‘Bad?’ Martin suggests, still smiling. 

Of course he does have water. Put it out on the bedside table at some point, though Jon doesn’t remember him getting up. He’s in pyjamas too, come to think of it. And, wiggling his toes experimentally, Jon realises he has extra socks on. As Martin passes the glass over Jon wonders if he’ll ever stop feeling happily surprised by it, ever get tired of being looked after now he’s gotten accustomed to it. He sits up to down most of the glass before handing it back and flopping back onto the pillow. Probably not. 

‘Atrocious,’ he huffs, still tasting sleep. 

Martin's fingers are gentle when they slide under his jaw and turn his head for a dry, delicate kiss that takes him by surprise. 

It had all still felt a bit like a dream. Or just short of a dream since his are something else - a daydream, he supposes, a sweet reverie. But he can hear the morning birds and feel the early mist and Martin tastes like morning too. 

Martin hums over the exaggerated smacking sound as he pulls back. He still has his eyes closed. ‘Yeah, you kind of do,’ he says, laughing.

Jon has no comeback to that. It feels different to kiss in the morning and his mouth is still humming with it. 

Martin rolls over and checks the time. ‘Did you sleep alright?’

Jon thinks about it. ‘Surprisingly well, actually.’ 

He feels the corners of his mouth twitching as Martin finally turns back to him with real joy on his face. His dimple comes out. 

‘Really?’

‘Really,’ Jon says. Then he frowns. ‘Why?’

‘Oh just -’ Martin shifts onto his elbow, lies his arm across the pillow and his head down on his arm. The short sleeve of his old grey t-shirt rides up and there are freckles all up to his shoulder. ’You were moving about a lot. I thought it might be a bad dream.’

It’s the first time he’s asked about them, but he knows full well what the dreams are like. He knows what Jon does to people. And now they’ve been sharing the bed for over a week. 

Several times already Jon has woken up clammy and shaking, with Martin looking at him, concerned and gentle. Sometimes stilling his hands, or stroking his arm. Murmuring. Always murmuring.  _ It’s alright, it’s alright.  _ He doesn’t ask where Jon’s been or what he was watching. It doesn’t seem to matter to him, strangely. Not under the blankets. 

On one memorable occasion, he’d started humming. 

Really, Jon had thought bitterly, a lullaby? ‘ _I’m not a child_ ,’ he’d been about to say, shivering, vulnerable enough to bite. But then it had actually been sort of soothing. Martin hums tunefully, with a full sound on the notes that come out strongly. He lets the note turn to a sigh when he can’t reach it. Breathes with his mouth open and close, lips brushing Jon’s hair during the rests. It helps, listening to him hum nonsense - _‘My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean’, ‘Scarborough Fair’, ‘Hey Jude’_ , something that Jon thinks he recognises from ‘ _The Sound of Music’_. Once he’d tried ‘ _Jerusalem_ ’ and they’d both dissolved into sleepy, breathy giggles. 

He’s far too kind. Still, even now, so soon after. That essentially kind part of him remains, uncorrupted by the fog. He doesn’t complain about losing sleep himself, doesn’t lament the damp sheets or the mental energy it must all take. He never seems afraid. 

‘I don’t mean to disturb you,’ Jon sighs, ‘that’s what comes with being a monster, I suppose. It was less bad last night. Nothing new.’ 

Martin tuts softly. ‘You’re not -‘ 

‘I know,’ Jon corrects himself. He’s getting used to Martin’s reminders, even if they’re not entirely true. ‘It - it’s fine.’ 

Martin sighs into a frown. He closes his eyes a moment, not to drift off again but seemingly thinking. When he opens them he shifts even closer, so they’re almost nose to nose. His thumb comes to stroke gently back and forth over Jon’s eyebrow. The soft scrape of it, and his breathing, and the breeze, and a cow herd in the distance, is all there is.

‘Maybe,’ he starts, slowly sounding it out, thinking as he goes, and still stroking, ‘to those people, in their dreams, you’re the monster. And you - you can’t do anything about that now, right?’ 

He sighs as Jon shakes his head minutely against the pillow, against the gentle thumb. 

‘But not here,’ he says, and there is that firmness in his voice like when he’s being calming. It leaves no room for arguing. ‘Here with me you’re just... you. Okay? You’re just Jon.’

Jon isn’t sure that’s quite how it all works, and mumbles something of the sort into the heel of Martin's palm. 

‘Can be,’ Martin just shrugs. ‘If we say so.’

And here, with him, Jon does believe it. He smiles, feels warmth spreading through the guilt, through his chest and right to his toes. 

‘Alright,’ he agrees happily. 

He leans into Martin’s hand like he did last night and hums as it cups his cheek, brings him closer until they’re sharing the same pillow. Raising his head and looking into Martin’s eyes, warm and sleepy and open, he feels that same lapping sensation that he felt last night, like a ripple at the edge of a bowl. It urges him to spill, to say something, do the thing he wants to do. 

‘Can I kiss you?’ He asks, and he feels the soft exhale against his mouth as Martin smiles. 

‘Please.’

He does, eyelids heavy and blushing. He does again and again, slowly and lightly and sweet like peach juice and honey soaked crumpets and real like the leftover taste of wine and heavy, hungover sleep. 

He only stops when it’s so soft it might as well be sleeping. His lips drift off and float between them, close and content. Martin hums and it vibrates through both of them. 

‘You don’t have to ask, you know? Not that I don’t appreciate it but. You can just kiss me,’ he smiles, ‘Like. Whenever.’

‘Right,’ Jon says, and he does again just to prove the point and Martin laughs at him but holds his jaw and actually makes the tiniest moan when he says ‘I thought about it a lot. Kissing you.’

‘Did you?’ Breathless. 

Jon nods, their foreheads touching. ‘You did too, right?’

He doesn’t mean it to be teasing, but they both know he knows the answer and Martin huffs a laugh against his cheek. His breath is hot, his whole face a happy flush that reminds Jon of those early days, when he was always going red and smiling awkwardly. But he doesn’t look twenty-nine anymore, doesn’t have that lost look. The flush doesn’t wear him. It blossoms.

‘I think,’ he says, words tiptoeing up like playful tickling fingers, ‘since you’re  _ technically _ still my boss, I probably shouldn’t tell you  _ just _ how much company time I wasted thinking about kissing you...’

Jon would play along but his breath hitches. ‘Please tell me...’ 

There’s no compulsion in it, or he’s not trying to put any in it, but he means it and Martin’s hand shivers a bit against his cheek.

‘I, um. I think,’ he says, voice wavering but tentatively sure. ‘I think we should probably talk about all of it. Last night. And this morning. And before and... everything.’

‘Yes, I... I-I- suppose we should.’ 

‘A good talk,’ Martin clarifies, and he is still smiling so Jon believes him. ‘Not anything, uh, scary. I should’ve said.’ 

‘Alright,’ he says. His heart is skipping like a child on a playground, and because it’s Martin he’s not afraid of falling and skinning his knee. He waits, then asks ‘are you starting?’

Martin huffs a soft laugh and plants a kiss on his forehead. 

‘Tea first,’ he says, and pushes back the covers. 

  
  
  
  


Martin takes the bathroom first; Jon puts the kettle on. He listens to it without doing anything else - no fussing, just peacefully waiting for it to boil. There is no noise from the city, no spooling tape. 

The highlands are quiet and beautiful. Of course they’re mainly staying in, hiding out. They were on edge at the start but now it’s actually restful, calm. It’s nice to be out of London as much as anything. It’s easier to sleep. The air is cleaner and they’re secluded enough that it tastes like heather. People here say ‘hello’ in the corner shop and it’s nice to be treated so humanly.

He is letting the tea steep when the guard changes and Martin takes over. When he comes back from the bathroom, mouth tasting a whole lot better, Martin hands him his mug with the bag still in, warming up to the right shade of tawny. 

They settle on Daisy’s ragged sofa. 

‘Here we are again,’ Martin says a bit slyly as he loudly sips his too-hot tea, and Jon gives him an amused hum. 

Last night sure did happen. He remembers it all, he’s sure, or he remembers the important part. Remembers being on the floor and basically in Martin’s lap and that not embarrassing him because there was just this simmering desperation to be as close as physically possible. And it was comfortable. 

Now Martin seems far away, on the other end of the sofa. Jon moves up a bit and tries not to look too worried. He doesn’t  _ feel _ worried because Martin doesn’t look worried, so it can’t be a bad thing. He waits expectantly, and Martin gives a sort of ‘ _ fair enough’  _ noise and puts his tea down. 

‘All I wanted to say,’ he starts, immediately reassuring, ‘is I don’t know what you’ve listened to, or heard, or what you just...  _ know _ -’ 

He sounds so much more confident than he used to. His vowels are full bodied and he sits upright, comfortable in the space he takes up. It is a good colour on him, the surety. 

‘I’m sure you probably know. How... how I feel about you. But after last night I wanted to tell you properly.’

‘Oh.’

‘Well you know, you must know I’ve had feelings for you for a long time. I love you, actually,’ he says with only a little wobble. 

There’s a pause, but he goes quickly on like the silence is a road bump for his new confidence, talking again before Jon’s managed to fully take that on. 

‘And last night, to me, anyway, I thought it was coming and it felt like... like the end of something? Of the waiting, I guess. It felt like, you know.  _ Finally _ ,’ Martin half laughs as he breathes that out and Jon nods with a fervent amusement. It’s sad yes, but what’s the point in taking so long if they can’t laugh about it. ‘And I feel like it was like the start of something, for me. For us. You know, not just  _ that _ time, which I, uh,’ he grins a bit shyly, ‘well I don’t think it’s just me. And this morning being this morning I’m guessing you want the same thing but I’m just. Telling you that’s what I want. Have wanted.’ 

It’s funny how it comes out so easy now. Martin was never good before at saying what he wanted without being embarrassed about it - which Jon sympathises with, it’s not easy. But now the way he says it is. Smiling, simple. 

‘And maybe you knew, but I wanted to tell you that I love you.’ 

This time, now that he’s finished, and says it without wobbling, Jon does catch it. It catches in his throat. But it isn’t frightening. It’s warm when he swallows it and smiles. Feels like it belongs there, settles there easily. 

Jon did know it. Had felt it and not felt sure enough, deserving enough, to attach that word to... Well, who is he to go calling other people’s feelings love? When they’re for  _ him _ as well. But hearing it called that and now knowing humanly that’s what it always was feels... different. 

He maybe didn’t expect to feel relieved. (Because he has thought about it, of course he’s thought about it. How it would feel.) Maybe he expected it to feel like a lot and smack him into silence with its weight, with its significance. 

It does, and it is significant,  _ so so  _ significant and he’ll remember it forever, but he’s only quiet for a second. He’s just so relieved and happy and he agrees,  _ oh God he agrees, please let this be the start for us  _ and he doesn’t want to leave Martin waiting. Not after he’s said all that - managed to explain it all so perfectly and loves him. 

‘I-’ he starts (bad start but he can feel his cheeks tight with smiling so he hopes it’ll come out right). ‘I feel... yeah, I feel the same.’

Martin lets his being awful at this stuff go. Or maybe he isn’t thinking anything critical like that. He’s smiling like he’s relieved as anything too, and his eyes and brows are soft, not set in question. He puts his hand out on Jon’s knee.

‘You do?’

‘I do, I - it felt like that for me too,’ Jon says, and he can’t help ducking his head because Martin’s smile is bordering on having too much fun. 

He looks at Martin’s hand on his knee, takes it and holds it and tries to find the words for how it felt, how it feels. It seems unfair Martin’s already taken all the best ones. 

‘It, was, uh...’

Like the best of himself. Like he’d never been more in his body and out of his head in the best grounding way possible. Like he’d never been more content to be there. He’d been sinking, he remembers, last night, sinking closer like he’d never known the fear of the shibboleth there had once been between them. He’d been falling like he’d never known that being dropped existed. 

‘ _ You won’t drop me,’  _ he remembers saying. He knows really what that feeling must be, is. But it's so impossible to articulate. 

‘You know, it... You know I want that too,’ he gives up eventually, shaking his head, smiling. They  _ have _ to both know. ‘This,’ he gestures between them with their clasped hands. ‘This morning but. Every morning. I, uh. I feel the same.’

Martin squeezes his hand. ‘Are you going to... say it?’ He asks, teasing curling his mouth upwards with the inflection, and Jon rolls his eyes, kisses him before he can get another joke in. 

Martin huffs a laugh into the side of his cheek and catches it there, cups it in the safe hollow of his hand, pulls it closer. His palm is still warm from his mug. Jon is maybe a bit out of practice but he tries to kiss him with that safe comforting warmth, wants it to be as habitual as the tea is. He shifts onto his knee, holding Martin’s jaw with one hand and the warm hand on his cheek in the other. The love he feels presses, he hopes, like a full-bodied blend, soft and homely as warm milk. Maybe he’s not good with talking about this sort of thing, and maybe he’s not the best kisser that ever lived. But Martin sighs as they slip apart, foreheads touching, and he sucks in a hopeful breath. 

His top lip is pushed up, the soft inside of it still pressed against Martin’s cupid's bow. Both their bottom ones hang slack, brushing dry and delicate against each other in the shared slow breaths. 

‘You know,’ Martin smiles, ‘that doesn’t really count as-’

‘I love you,’ Jon tells him. 

The hand he’s holding to his cheek goes perfectly still. Not tense, quite the opposite. Martin’s fingers seem to spread, everything flopping out of them like finally sinking into something soft. His hand on Jon’s knee is suddenly heavier as he forgets to hold his own weight up, relaxes onto it. 

‘You really do...’ He says, only half a question, half an exhalation like he’s reeling in the gravity of it. 

Jon isn’t sure whether to laugh -  _ can’t you see it written all over my face, didn’t you hear it every time I nearly had it out _ \- to answer it, or to ache that Martin doesn’t believe it. Alright, maybe Jon took a while to warm up, but in his defence it wasn’t  _ that _ long ago he was literally on his knees. 

He needs to check; it comes out a jokey sort of meekness. ‘You do believe me, don’t you?’

Martin’s hand slides round to the back of his neck, scrapes gently at the scruffy hair. He’s shaking his head impossibly. ‘Obviously, I just - I can’t believe...’ he laughs softly, ‘of  _ course _ I believe you, I just think I need to hear it a few more times before I come back to Earth.’ 

‘I love you,’ Jon says again, relishing the strangeness of the shapes his mouth makes against Martin’s, the way his bottom lip pushes up into something like a kiss on the ‘v’ and the ‘u’. ‘Please stay on Earth.’

‘Mmm,’ Martin hums, smiling, ‘I don’t know, it’s quite nice up-’

He laughs round the swallowed ‘here’ as he’s kissed to a stop. 

It’s like the floodgates are open now. Jon has never been good at sharing - like getting blood from a stone, Georgie said it was. But now, with his eyes closed, whispering it into a mouth he knows and trusts, it’s easy. Waves of  _ easy _ wash over, above his head, and he’ll take them, ride them, let the feeling pour out of his mouth while they last. Martin deserves that much from him. Jon worries the tide will inevitably go out and he’ll trip over his tongue again later, but it seems unimaginable now. He says it again to make sure, hoping if he can soak Martin in it long enough then they’ll remember how it feels when the waves retreat. 

‘I love you.’ 

‘Okay,’ Martin breathes, mouth a happy murmur, still close, ‘mmm, maybe I could be persuaded.’ 

Jon tuts and goes back to persuading him. They stay like that a while, swapping persuasion back and forth. Less desperate than last night but less gentle than the morning. When they come up for air, longer than before, Martin sighs like he’s going to say something. He manages something like ‘well,’ before putting his hand out to the table. The tea is getting cold.

He’s probably going to say something like that. ‘ _ Tea’s cold _ .’ Slap his knee, go off to stick the kettle back on. Maybe he thinks it's self-indulgent - sitting here, kissing Jon and hearing it over and over. As much as he pressed to get it, he doesn’t go in for indulgence much. Before the fog and since. Or maybe he just wants another tea. Either way Jon’s not finished. 

His hand strokes down from Martin’s cheek but he keeps it cupping his shoulder, rubs it gently and hopes that’s not weird. 

‘How long?’ He asks, maybe a bit coy but very serious. 

Martin ignores the tea. ‘Hm?’ 

‘How long have you loved me?’

‘Oh God,’ Martin sucks in through his teeth, hanging his head in a way that warms Jon up to laughing. ‘This is a bit embarrassing.’ 

‘It isn’t-‘ Jon retorts, unsure whether he’s trying to win the argument or make Martin feel better or tease him something rotten. He leans back against the sofa arm and Martin shuffles forward wordlessly so he can rest his back and stay close at the same time. 

‘What if I told you I realised I liked you right before we left for Yarmouth. I had before I think - but I only knew it then. And I couldn’t say anything because I - well the timing.’ He shrugs, grinning, playing off the pain it once caused. ‘That’s embarrassing isn’t it?’

Martin does laugh then, properly. ‘Jon, I liked you a  _ lot _ before then. Like ages before then.’

‘Oh.’ Jon says. ‘Really?’

‘Oh my God, yes - really! Since nearly the start.’ 

Jon scrunches his nose up. ‘But I was such a- I wasn’t very nice to you.’ 

‘Well, maybe not,’ Martin allows, still grinning, ‘but I fancied you anyway. Tim used to say that was my type but-’

‘What was?’

Martin rolls his eyes, knocks Jon’s knee with his. ‘You know...’

‘What?!’ Jon knocks it back. 

‘Well, like... Aloof. Unavailable.’

‘God, I was that bad?’ 

‘Mmm,’ Martin grins. He leans forward again to tuck a piece of hair back from Jon’s forehead, gently cups the shell of his ear, ring finger resting on the lobe. ‘I knew you were secretly nice underneath it all.’

‘I’m trying,’ Jon says quietly, and it sounds more plaintive than he’s expecting after laughter. It’s happy though, and he leans into Martin’s hand with the joyous relief that someone’s  _ noticed _ . ‘I am trying.’ 

He wants his love to have buoyancy, wants to keep them both afloat and keep it easy. There’s plenty more to be said about it, to expand on the fact he’s been  _ trying _ every day since waking up something else, and that he wants to every day they have from now on, forever. But for the moment it seems to be enough. Martin’s thumb strokes over his cheekbone like he understands it. He wouldn’t be so gentle, surely, if he didn’t understand it.

‘I know,’ Martin says simply. ‘I love you for it.’ Like it’s the simplest thing. 

Jon’s eyes threaten to spill over then so he goes on with shy obfuscation. Excuses, in case he fucks it up like he’s bound to. 

‘It’s hard. I mean,’ he shrugs his hand in a halfhearted wave, but doesn’t move his cheek, ‘you’re so good at it all. I doubt I’ll be as good as you.’ 

Martin frowns and makes a tutting ‘aw’ kind of sound. ‘It’s not easy every day,’ he says. ‘Not like I’ve never been a dick to anyone but... It’s what I do, I guess it’s not that weird to me- I’m really not a miracle worker, I just think about other people.’ 

He shrugs like he’s only ever done the bare minimum. Maybe he doesn’t even know how much he does. But it’s not the thinking is it, that’s so admirable. Jon knows him well enough to  _ know _ that he  _ thinks _ about other people, but he’s right - lots of people  _ think.  _ It’s the fact he makes the effort.  _ Does _ things. Gets up in the middle of the night, gets water, puts Jon’s socks on. 

‘I’m trying too,’ he says, a bit quieter. It’s maybe a bit dejected, but maybe just shy. His hands are small in his lap. 

Jon takes them both in his, ducks a bit to catch Martin’s smile. ‘I love you for it,’ he repeats. 

Martin makes a small sound, a choked sort of rejecting scoff. Apparently he can say it with confidence but not hear it, which is just absurdly him. Jon goes to knock him playfully on the cheek, but when he does it his knuckle comes away wet. His stomach drops as Martin looks back at him, eyes swimming. 

‘Don’t cry,’ he says, panicking, stroking the single tear track away a bit too hard, ‘aw, don’t-‘ 

‘No, it’s okay,’ Martin half laughs, blinking furiously. ‘It’s fine, I’m fine, it’s just-’ his voice cracks slightly as he shakes his head, ‘no one ever has.’ 

Jon’s shoulders sag as he reaches out. He cradles both Martin’s wet cheeks, feeling wet against his nails, thumbs stroking like window wipers. Martin sniffs and huffs at himself for sniffing, and eventually Jon sighs and pulls his hung head forward to envelop it in his chest. 

‘Sorry, stupid-’

‘No,’ Jon promises, sighing as his own eyes well up again. ‘I know,’ he says, because it’s something comforting to say. And because he understands. ‘I know, I feel the same...’ 

At some point they stop having to try not to cry, breathe back to normal and have another cuddle. Jon tries to hold tightly, even as his eyes are slipping closed (it’s comfortable in his defence, and as in love as he is he’s still a bit hungover and tired out from all the emotion). Tries to hold tightly enough to make up for the fact  _ no one ever has.  _

Eventually they make it off the sofa. The tea is long cold, and there’s no microwave, so as much as Martin hates waste, he resigns himself to chucking it and making fresh ones. It’s ok, he likes the process. He doesn’t say he likes the process but his face is free of creases when his hands are busy with mugs.

They make breakfast. Or rather, Jon makes breakfast with Martin’s hands clasped in the pocket of his hoodie, his soft chin on Jon’s shoulder. Maybe it’s a bit inconvenient when they shuffle between fridge and counter and hob and sink, chuckling softly. But it’s nice to be clung to and Jon’s just happy Martin’s back, properly, and comfortable enough now to cling to him while he awkwardly wobbles with the pan and spatula. 

They’re back on the sofa cuddled up, empty eggy plates and sticky forks discarded by the time they need to say anything else of importance. Martin sighs and wipes his mouth with his sleeve and leans back against the arm of the sofa with Jon’s head in his lap. 

Looking up at his fond upside down smile, feeling fingers brushing his hair back (it’s been bordering on shaggy for a few weeks), Jon finds it’s very easy to ask the embarrassing questions. And very easy to tease him. 

‘Will you tell me now?’ Jon asks. 

‘Tell you what?’

‘How long you thought about this.’

Martin frowns down at him, amused. ‘I did tell you.’ 

‘ _ Really _ ?’ Jon asks, masking a soft disbelief with laughing incredulity. ‘Since the start?

‘Well, nearly, yeah,’ Martin smiles, only going a little bit pink. He pinches Jon’s cheek to cover it, teasing. ‘You really didn’t notice? Mr All-Seeing?’ 

Jon scoffs a laugh and knocks his hand away. ‘I  _ thought _ ,’ he starts, like he’s going to laugh about it, but then he thinks about why he didn’t see it and frowns. ‘It felt... weird. To think you might be... attracted to me.’ He cringes a bit at the words but Martin’s head is tilted like he’s listening. His face is earnest. Happy. Not teasing. Jon goes on. ‘I, uh- I thought that would just be... wishful thinking.’

Martin does almost laugh then, another small choked one, followed by a shaky drag of air through his teeth. 

‘Wishful...’ He repeats, shaking his head. ‘God, I thought I was so obvious.’ He says that quite quietly, hand still on Jon’s forehead. Then he shrugs off whatever was sadly ridiculous about it. ‘I was, by the way,’ he smiles, fiddling with a piece of hair. ‘I am. Hope that’s okay with you.’ 

He’s teasing again now, dimple coming out as he smirks stupidly wide and Jon rolls his eyes. Maybe he’s going a bit pink now too. He’d have thought he’d look a bit odd upside down but apparently not. It’s a nice feeling when it’s with love. A fluttering feeling he’d thought he was too old and full of holes for. 

‘Yes,’ Jon tuts at him, ‘it’s... fine.’

‘Fine?’

‘I think everyone else noticed, to be fair.’

Martin grins knowingly at the blush Jon’s refusing to acknowledge but lets the subject change slide. ‘Yeah,’ he allows, ‘Tim and Sasha - they knew even before I did I think.’

Jon frowns. ‘Is that...’ He sits up then, turns around and raises his eyebrow with his best teasing curiosity. ‘What happened at the Christmas party?’ 

Martin screws his eyes tight, goes to cover his face. Jon grabs his wrists and holds them down, laughing. ‘Oh, God,’ Martin groans at him, ‘really?’ 

‘Come on,’ Jon cajoles him, pulling his hands into his chest. ‘Don’t I get the whole story now?’ 

Martin goes redder and whines in a way that only makes Jon more curious and the forbidden story more appealing. His wrestling is very half hearted and giggly; it’s easy enough for Jon to pester his wrists with kisses until he says ‘fine, fine! I’m ticklish, stop- fine!’ 

So Martin tells Jon the story, and they both talk and laugh and talk and laugh, in the way Peter said they never had. It’s nice to talk about Sasha and Tim and not be sad, not feel horribly guilty. Just to remember them fondly and laugh at the memory and the image of them, doing tequila shots, gossiping, arguing about who should be snogging who. 

‘Is that what you were doing last night then?’ Jon grins. He wrinkles his nose as he says it - ‘snogging me?’

Martin splutters a laugh. ‘Don’t make that face!’

‘I hate it,’ Jon tells him, unable to hold in his own scoffing chuckle. ‘I sound like a teenager.’

‘You were kissing me like one.’

‘Shut up!’

‘Didn’t say I didn’t like it,’ Martin placates. He’s still laughing, hand on Jon’s chest, shaking his head, and it’s Jon’s favourite sound, it has to be. 

So he kisses it. Shuffles backwards with his hands clutching fabric until Martin crowds him against the arm of the sofa. Keeps shifting down and pulling until Martin laughs into his mouth - ‘I can't come any closer without squashing you’ - and he furiously shakes his head. 

‘I’m two inches shorter than you, Martin, I’m not going to snap.’ 

‘Two inches my arse-’

‘I told you I can cope, now come here-’

Maybe it’s a bit more than two inches, closer to half a head but the point stands. He feels less fragile than he’s felt in months. Maybe years. The weight of Martin on top of him is lovely, heavy and soft on Jon’s hips, on his stomach and his chest when Martin lies right over him, one hand on the back of his head, keeping him there and holding him through kisses. 

Even though they are making up for lost time, Jon is glad it’s now. He’s imagined all the times they could have had but this one is better - languid and relieved and safe. Though the world outside is a ticking time bomb and they both know they can’t hide forever. Though this might be a snatched moment before the awful catches up with them, and though sooner rather than later they’re going to have to address the fact that his head aches for a statement. 

But it is easy to forget all that now, or this makes it better, makes it bearable and wonderful to only have a plan of waiting and hiding and snuggling up safe and warm. 

They’re different people now, making different choices. Choosing each other. He wasn’t ready before, for this love. Maybe he never will be. Maybe there isn’t a perfect state of readiness where he deserves this love and believes it. He supposes he should hope  _ not _ , since they’re both so determined to try and be better. But the sofa is comfortable and Martin is a damn good kisser and he feels he’s at least ready to deserve  _ this _ . After everything. At least this. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well thats it then guys !!!!!!! the end of an era truly.......... pweeeaaasseee tell me what u think and everything this has been a long time coming....... cant believe i finished it bfuewibfiw
> 
> ty all for following this wip even tho im slow af xx if ur reading this complete even tho its over a year since i posted ch1 ur an angel <33
> 
> thanks again office party gang... this was a blast


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